Archive of Our Own

Work Text

53 Days after the death wave hit, Clarke had made it back to the bunker in the rover with the rations and supplies she’d brought from Becca’s house. But when she got there, she’d discovered that the building above the bunker had collapsed, and there was now just a mountain of rubble there.Huge pieces of cement covered the place where the stairway down to the fleimkepas’ chamber had been, where the bunker was.Clarke stood next to that giant pile of rubble with her eyes closed, her hand on a huge block of cement, knowing that Lexa was down there. Alive in that bunker. Could fucking feel her down there.She tried every channel on the rover’s radio to reach her. But never got an answer.Tried to pull at those concrete blocks for a week straight, until her hands were a bloody mess and her whole body ached … But there was no getting around the concrete. She knew with every fiber of her being that Lexa would find a way out though. Would find a way to save her people and bring them to the ground.But she also knew that Lexa thought she was in space … and that Lexa wouldn’t be out of that bunker for 5 years ... Lexa could survive on the surface as a nightblood, but she had no reason to come out early now …God how Clarke regretted her lie, telling Lexa that she was going to space with her friends.But Lexa had sounded so broken, so completely wrecked over the radio as she’d begged Clarke not to risk her life by staying on the ground that Clarke had just said the words into the mic. Had made the promise just to placate her, fully intending to call Lexa back and tell her that she’d stayed after she’d gotten her friends safely into space. If she survived. But then the radio at Becca’s lab had stopped working when the death wave hit Polis … And now, Lexa was in the bunker and she was locked out, with no way to let her know she had survived and was still there.Clarke didn’t have enough food with her to stay camped out at the bunker for another week, let alone 5 years. And she needed to stay alive until then.So she drove back to Becca’s compound, filled up the rover with water and food and then started to roam. To explore. To see what was left of their world.She went to Arkadia first, to find whatever supplies she could in the burned black metal structure of the Ark. Went to where Trikru had been. Drove through miles and miles of nothing. Of vast desert.She found her way to Shallow Valley, a valley filled with trees and flowers, with birds and living creatures and a huge lake of fresh water.The place was entirely pristine.Appeared to be completely untouched by the death wave.Honestly, it was so beautiful that when she found it, Clarke started to question whether she had survived the radiation after all …When she’d hiked into the valley, she found the remains of the community who had lived there too. Their little village of wooden houses. Their rainwater collection tanks. Their barn and garden and field of corn. And their dead bodies … so many dead bodies … covered in radiation burns. She emptied their pockets, removed all but their underclothes from their fragile bodies … thinking she might have to use the material for something someday … and then she gave them the best funeral she could. Built a pyre in the Grounder way ... Told them that their fight was over … Wished them safe passage on their travels … And thanked them for the home they had left her.She found a little girl hiding in the woods there too. Madi. A nightblood child who was maybe 8 years old, who had survived the radiation.And after weeks of leaving out extra food for the girl, drawings for the girl, and being lured into a bear trap and having all of her stuff stolen by the girl, they had become friends. In a year, they were family. Madi had taught Clarke how to fish, which plants were edible, how to survive in the valley. And Clarke had taught her every trick she knew from her earth skills class on the Ark, taught her how to draw, taught her better English, taught her all the age appropriate lessons she could remember from her own schooling.But Madi was mostly just interested in Clarke’s stories about the 100. About life on the Ark. About Polis. And about Lexa. Lexa became Madi’s hero. That was no surprise of course. Lexa was Clarke’s hero too. And Clarke couldn’t keep the emotion out of her voice when she told Madi the stories about her. And the more Madi asked for the stories, the more Clarke told and retold them, the more she realized just how good and noble and brilliant Lexa actually was. And just how much Lexa had loved her.“So … all the other clans wanted to get rid of her … and you were mad at her too?”Clarke nodded at Madi, who was curled up next to her by the fire, looking at the drawing of Lexa in Clarke’s sketchbook.“But then … she made Skykru the 13th clan, and she swore fealty to you …,” Madi added, thinking it through … the story she’d probably heard dozens of times in their 2 years together, “And … because she did that, you backed her, and they couldn’t get rid of her. You helped her … even though you were mad at her … ’cause she made you that promise … And … if she hadn’t let Skykru join, if she hadn’t made you that promise, you wouldn’t have helped her, and she probably would’ve been killed?”Clarke looked at Madi for a long moment, “Yeah … I guess … But her promise … it wasn’t just politics … She was trying to make things right with me.”Madi scrunched up her nose, “I guess. That was pretty smart though … How she tricked you like that.”Clarke nudged Madi’s foot with the toe of her hiking boot, “She didn’t trick me.”Madi smirked at her.“You weren’t there …,” Clarke looked away, “She did so many things to protect me … when she didn’t have to … When it could’ve gotten her …,” Clarke’s eyes filled with tears at the memories of just how much Lexa had risked for her, time and time again … At the time, Clarke hadn’t understood Grounder politics well enough to fully grasp just how much Lexa was risking for her … But she understood now, with the perfect clarity of hindsight … Having seen the consequences of Lexa’s commitment to her play out at massive personal cost to her time and time again …“She’s gonna find a way out of that bunker …,” Madi looked at her, “I know she will.”Clarke nodded and wrapped an arm around Madi, pulled her in close. Rested her chin on top of Madi’s black braids.Lexa would find a way out ... if the people in the bunker didn’t kill her first … as they’d tried to do so many times in Lexa’s years as Heda. As they’d tried to do so many times in just the time that Clarke had known her …But even if she did make it out, who would Lexa be then?After 5 years of living in that bunker, going through who even knew what kinds of hardships. After 5 years of thinking she was gone ...Thinking that Clarke was in space wasn’t all that different from thinking that Clarke was dead … someplace totally inaccessible … Some place so far away that it was hardly worth thinking about at all really.She could hardly imagine Lexa living underground … Lexa indoors … in a confined space … with no horses or tents or bustling city or coalition of thousands to watch over.God … how Lexa must be grieving that loss …She loved her people so fiercely. Had given them everything of herself … her life, her blood … had worked so tirelessly to create peace and stability for them … And in the end, had only been able to save such a small fraction of the now 12 clans …Clarke would have given anything to be there to help her through that grief. To be there to remind Lexa to focus on what had been saved instead of what had been lost … as Lexa had once done for her … She hoped that someone was doing that for Lexa now. Maybe Gaia would. Maybe her mom would. Maybe Kane too.She knew Lexa was a pro at shouldering crushing burdens. That she wouldn’t let anyone see how deeply she felt the weight of every lost life. But this setback was so massive. Starting over. Having to rebuild everything from scratch. From nothing. The way the commanders before her must’ve had to do a hundred years ago, after the first praimfaya. Everything Lexa had built had been lost. The hundred years of progress she’d built it on. All gone.If anyone could cope with a loss like that and stay focused on what needed to be done now to give her people the best chance of survival, it would be Lexa.But could anyone cope with a loss like that?Over those two years, she’d called Lexa every day on the radio she’d pulled out of the rover, even though there was never any answer. Said all the comforting things she would say if she were there in the bunker by Lexa’s side. Said all the things she wished she’d said to her. Told her she thought about her so much. Told her how she dreamed about her. How she missed her so fucking badly she could hardly breath sometimes ... And she told her about Madi. About the valley. About how she couldn’t wait to show it to her. Couldn’t wait for Lexa to see this place so full of life. That Lexa would love it. That there was peace there. Happiness. What Lexa had always wanted to give her people … Told her she would have something beautiful to look after and protect. Lexa would have that again.And every month, or whenever the sandstorms would allow, Clarke and Madi took the rover through the desert and back to the bunker. Tried to contact the people inside over the rover’s radio. Just in case. Tried futilely to pull the huge slabs of concrete away with the rover’s winch. Looked for any sign that the rubble over the bunker had shifted. Looked for any sign that the people in the bunker were working toward coming out early in their radiation suits. Any evidence at all that Lexa had found a way out without one. She was a nightblood after all, just like Clarke and Madi. She could be on the ground if she found a way out … not that Lexa would think she had any reason to be out on the surface, away from her people. As far as she knew, every living person on Earth was already with her in the bunker.On every visit to the bunker, they checked that the stones they had laid out were still in place. Were still clearly readable. The stones that spelled out, “Lexa Come to Shallow Valley. Safe. - C. G.”. They had spelled it out three times, on each side of the giant pile of rubble so it couldn’t be missed. Or in case one of the messages got messed up when the people in the bunker finally dug or blasted their way out. Clarke put down a stone underneath the message for every time they had visited too. And soon enough, there were 24 of those stones. Two years of visits. Of waiting. Of hoping.Clarke put her arm around Madi’s shoulders. She was getting taller now. Was 10, according to the birthday Clarke had given her, and that they celebrated with fresh raspberries during their growing season in the valley.“It’s getting dark,” Clarke sighed, “We should go.”Madi looked up at her, “Just a little longer?”Clarke nodded, pulled some jerky out of the rover and handed it to her. Ate quietly beside her as they watched the sun set.Clarke wasn’t religious, but these monthly visits had become her religion. This pile of stones her church. She tried not to think of it as a tomb. Tried to think of it as more like dirt. As the place life would spring forth from. This pile of rocks marked the place where her person was. It was the foundation they would build on. Together. —— At the end of the evening ritual, Lexa closed the session and wished everyone a restful sleep, and then headed up to the entrance of the bunker. She pulled off her leather top, laid it over the guardrail so she was just in her tank top and pants. Hit the button on the wall to clean the decontamination chamber, opened and then sealed the big metal door and climbed up the metal steps, pushed open the hatch.“You’ve made good progress …,” Indra greeted her in a radiation suit when Lexa had stepped out of the hatch and into the fleimkepas chamber, “The stone looks to be holding where you changed direction … We’re getting there.”Lexa nodded, slipped on a pair of safety goggles and a headlamp, tied a bandana over her nose and mouth and picked up a metal spike, along with one of the huge repurposed war hammers by the entrance to the tunnel.She didn’t need to do this. Others could work at chipping away the sandstone in shifts throughout the day to get the surface even faster.But as a nightblood, she didn’t need a protective suit. Could pound and pound and pound away at the sandstone as much as she liked without having to worry about any little tear in the suit from the tools or the jagged rock walls killing her from any trace amounts of radiation in the air. And she didn’t want to risk losing a single one of her people.She was done losing her people.She also didn’t have to deal with the discomfort and humidity of working up a sweat in a radiation suit.And it would still be years before the people in the bunker would be able to be on the ground without radiation suits anyway. There was no rush.She had far more time than even she needed to dig them out herself.And coming up to the tunnel to hammer into the stone had become her own nightly ritual.There was something almost meditative about it. Swinging the hammer. Bashing away at the stone. She found more peace in it than she did in the evening ritual.The people in the bunker took comfort in the evening ritual though, the nightly memorial to those who had been lost.They needed to grieve.To process their losses. To honor those in their clans who weren’t in that bunker … all those who hadn’t survived. Even now, a little over two years in, they still needed it.Without that ritual, there would have been so much more squabbling, so much more pettiness and bitterness and selfishness for her to have to deal with.Even Skykru took part in the ritual now.They hadn’t for the first few months. Had turned up their noses at “the Grounders’” grieving traditions, with the exceptions of Markus, Octavia, and Abby … and a few of the other less prejudiced members of Skykru. But eventually, Skykru had come around. Most of them anyway. And of course, Skykru had been the clan who needed it most of all. Their dream of a life on the ground, the dream that their people had been waiting a hundred years for in space had been snatched away from them so cruelly … so soon after it had finally become a reality. The dream that Clarke had worked so hard for, had sacrificed so much of herself for … to give to her people.The nightly rituals, the memorial, the candles, honoring the memories of those they had lost, together, all the clans shoulder to shoulder … It was important. Gave everyone a place to put their grief so it didn’t build and warp and explode out of them in the worst ways. It gave Lexa a place to put her grief too … Her grief over losing everything … over losing Clarke … losing what could have been … the life they should have had together.Losing Clarke was a selfish thing to mourn.She knew that.Clarke was alive. That was all that mattered. Even if she was an unfathomable distance away, floating in space. Clarke’s heart was beating. She was breathing. She was with her friends. Safe. But Lexa allowed herself to silently mourn the distance that separated them all the same. Allowed herself to silently mourn the countless losses of her people. Of the animals and trees. Of the birds and flowers. Of the beauty of the world that had been lost.The flame had already given her glimpses of what to expect on the ground. The nothingness, the emptiness that the earliest commanders had had to confront after the first praimfaya.If that was what awaited them on the surface, the people in the bunker would need such rituals. Would need to find comfort in their bonds with each other when they saw it.And the evening ritual was helping to forge those bonds, within the clans, as well as between them. Despite the many, many differences between them, everyone in the bunker shared the same loss … The loss of so many of their people, of the ground, of the forests and rivers, the loss of fresh air and sunrises and certainty.And Lexa was determined to make sure that they got something back … Even if it was only sunrises and sunsets over a barren wasteland.Even if it was just a view of the stars.Whatever was awaiting them outside, whatever there was to be had, Lexa was going to make certain her people got it.It was grueling work. The hammering away at the sandstone. But there was hope in it too. Much more hope than she got from sitting still. Dealing with all the administration and squabbling of the clans she had to manage each day.For the most part though, things were on track in the bunker. They were getting enough to eat from the farm. Gradually learning to cooperate. To collaborate. To trust one another. They had made it through that hard first year, the transition to life underground, the terrible tasting but nutritionally excellent food, the austere surroundings and depressing concrete walls. Had made it through an attempted power grab. And they’d made it through the fear of learning about the collapse of the building overhead.Lexa had rallied her people though. Had worked with the engineers from Skykru to estimate the size of the footprint of rubble above the fleimkepas chamber to figure out the best angle and direction to dig to get out from under it. She had told her people that the stone was not insurmountable. Had praised her people for all that they had already overcome and promised them that they would overcome this obstacle as well. Told them that weapons would become tools. That sweat and effort would become inches, then feet, and then a tunnel of stone that they would walk out of into the sunlight when they emerged to reclaim the ground once again.And there was a clarity of purpose in the task. One goal. Clear and undebatable that everyone could get behind.Given Skykru’s estimates of the size of the task, and how long it would take for the surface to be safe for them, Lexa honestly could have waited another year to start tunneling. Probably two years even.But being indoors all the time had made her pretty stir crazy.Nothing could have prepared her for the way the minutes and hours and days stretched and stretched underground.Two years had already felt like a lifetime.The Sky People were made for this life. Were used to living in a confined space. But Lexa was not. Neither were the rest of her people. They were made for wide open spaces. For forests and lakes, for camping and fishing and climbing trees. She didn’t know what remained of the world outside the bunker, but she desperately wanted to find out. And she was one of the very few people who could leave the bunker safely to find out.The first time she’d tried though, she had been met with crushing disappointment.She’d been optimistic when she pushed through the hatch that first time and was greeted with the familiar sight of the fleimkepas chamber. It looked exactly as she remembered it. So much so that a part of her couldn’t help but hope that when she pushed open the door and ascended the stairs up to the ground, she would find her bustling city of Polis, find her people miraculously spared.It had been so hard to take the word of Skykru during those first months they’d been underground … their warnings that even a natblida should wait before opening the hatch because of how deadly and pervasive and sneaky the radiation could be … How the air itself would be poison. How anyone, even a nightblood, even someone in those in suits, would need to follow a strict decontamination protocol to avoid accidentally killing everyone inside the bunker.But she had waited. Had learned the decontamination protocol. Memorized it. Practiced it over and over again as she waited.And after all that waiting, when she’d opened the door to the stairway in the fleimkepas chamber that led up to the ground, all she found was a wall of stone. The stairwell now filled with thick slabs of solid concrete from the collapsed building above. Concrete that was harder to tunnel through than even the sandstone walls of the fleimkepas’ chamber.They were trapped. In the one place that was meant to keep them safe.Lexa had insisted on being the first one out of the hatch. Wore a radiation suit just as a precaution. Had come alone just in case there was any safety risk.When she’d opened that door up to the stairs and seen that wall of solid concrete, she’d turned around and slumped down to the floor, put her helmeted head in her hands.She allowed herself that one moment of weakness. That one moment to grieve yet another trial her people would have to face.And then she thought of Clarke. What Clarke would say to comfort her. The sympathetic look Clarke would give her. The feeling of Clarke holding her. Thought of how much Clarke had sacrificed, injecting herself with nightblood. Testing a dangerous experiment on herself for just the chance that if it worked, their people would survive the radiation and be able to live on the ground.Clarke had risked everything, her life for just that chance. And they still had a chance. The people in the bunker were alive. All of them. Grumbly and ornery, but still strong. Still filled with the will to live.And as long as they had that, Lexa would would put her own drive to save them to good use.Her enemy now had no weapon. Only required patience and effort and determination to defeat. And the stone that trapped her people would yield in time to the force of her will.Lexa would look up at the night sky and see the stars again. The place where Clarke was.Lexa had stood up, turned to face that wall of rock standing between her and that view, and ran her hands over the impossibly hard concrete. And then ran her hand over the sandstone walls of the fleimkepa’s chamber ... Chipped at it with an axe from one of the cabinets of weapons the fleimkepas kept. Watched a chunk of sandstone slide down the wall and crumble to the floor.It would be hard work. But not impossible. The flame told her that this was a relatively soft sandstone, was far from the hardest surface to tunnel through, far softer than the concrete in the stairwell. That it would yield to a hammer and spike.When she had told the clan leaders of her plan, they had wanted to send up teams to dig. But Lexa wouldn’t risk their lives. They would have to be so careful not to damage the radiation suits on accident. And the fewer people coming in and out of the bunker, the better. Less risk of carelessness with the decontamination protocol killing everyone in the bunker.Lexa and the other natblidas were the ones best suited to hammer away at the stone given their invulnerability to even the slightest trace of radiation that might be slipping through even the tiniest cracks in the concrete in the stairwell. But the tunneling itself would be dangerous too. Tunnels could collapse. So Lexa hammered away at the stone by herself. She was the only person in the bunker with a team of people trained to replace her. And Aden was ready if that time came.None of the clan leaders liked her doing the tunneling of course.Even Skykru recognized the value of her leadership by then. How the flame had helped her figure out how to address a scare about a food shortage in the farm early on. How her presence created a sense of calm, a sense of certainty and order that helped keep everyone relatively sane and well-behaved.The clan leaders didn’t want to risk losing her in a tunnel collapse.But it wasn’t their call.She had more than enough time to dig them out herself. Had replacements for her at the ready. And she wouldn’t risk anyone else’s life.Lexa would give her people their view of the stars back.And as she walked into the tunnel that night, a little over two years into living underground, she closed her eyes as she walked, letting her fingers trail along the sandstone walls of the tunnel she’d built, concentrating on the feeling of the tunnel’s floor angling up toward the surface under her feet. A little curve of a grin curling into the corner of her mouth.She was getting close.Had hopefully made it outside the footprint of the collapsed building above that would have just fallen in endlessly to erase any progress with concrete if she’d tried to tunnel straight up. She’d had to dig at a slow incline … through the sandstone bedrock under Polis.Lexa hefted the hammer, placed the spike into the slab of rock in front of her, hit it with the hammer with just enough force, until it the spike was stuck in the stone, and then she wheeled back and gave the hammer a hard swing with all her might. Heard the satisfying crack.And she kept going.An hour.Two hours.Three.Four.She should probably stop.But it was so fucking satisfying watching the rock buckle and split from her determination to give her people a life on the ground, filling the tunnel with the dust of the stone’s silent surrender, one hammer blow after the next, stepping over sheets of rock as they slid free of the wall in submission.Lexa kept swinging. Slamming the spike into the stone with the big hammer. Dust sticking to her sweaty arms. Swung again and again until she heard a rumble and instinctively stepped back, in case the stone collapsed in to crunch her toes or her bones …But nothing came.And after waiting a minute, she placed the spike in the stone and swung again. Swung hard at the stubborn rock for trying to scare her back. Heard it crack and buckle, saw a spider web of cracks stretch through the stone … and then stepped back quickly as a whole sheet of stone crumbled into the tunnel. She felt a little rush of cool air hit her sweaty skin. Looked down at the rubble at her feet and in the light of her headlamp saw … a gray cobblestone … the kind of cobblestone that lined the streets of Polis.The first sight of anything she had seen of her city in over 2 years.Her head snapped up and she the saw a small black hole in the roof of the tunnel before her. Saw the jagged edges of more gray cobblestones poking out around the black hole.She tapped the spike into the stone and reared back, swung the hammer with all her force. Hammered at the stone over and over again to make the hole bigger, her adrenaline surging until the floor of the tunnel was filled with cobblestones and she was panting so hard from the effort she could barely catch her breath. Bashed away at the stone until she looked up and saw a black hole in the tunnel’s ceiling big enough for her to crawl up through over the rubble.She stepped up onto the pile of broken stone, shoved her hammer up through the hole and up onto the surface, reached up and felt the rough cobblestones under her hands. Felt a rush of cool night air on her sweaty skin as she pulled herself up. Out. Onto a Polis street.The light of her headlamp whipped around as she sat on the ledge taking it all in … big heaving breaths rolling through her chest, her legs dangling down into the hole. The muscles in her arms aching and throbbing.She couldn’t see infinitely far in the light of the headlamp … but what she could see looked … bad … Oh god … So bad. Rocks. Rubble. Collapsed buildings. Everywhere the light of her headlamp touched.Polis.Her city.Her home.It was destroyed.Utterly destroyed by the force of the death wave.She let out a heavy sigh … feeling her heart tear open at the reality, at the future that lay ahead for her people.Living in these ruins … surrounded by the ghosts of all they had lost …And then she looked up at the sky full of twinkling stars … where Clarke was … Looked up at the beautiful view of the night sky that she hadn’t seen in years … Looked up at it for … how long she wasn’t sure …And then she wiped the sweat off her forehead, pulled down the bandana covering her mouth. Pushed herself up onto her feet. Dusted off her hands and turned around.Saw more rocks.More rubble.More collapsed buildings.Saw the huge mountain of broken concrete slabs over the place where the stairs down to the bunker had been. Where the building had collapsed.God it was fucking gigantic.But she had defeated it. With determination. With patience. One hammer blow at a time.She started walking over to her defeated adversary to growl the worst profanities she knew to it, but before the reached it, her foot caught a rock and she tripped. The headlamp shook as she caught herself just a split second before she hit the ground.The ground.God.She was on the ground.She stood up, dusted off her hands and looked down, her headlamp illuminating the offending stone … or … stones … there were a bunch of them here … all roughly the same size … all in a line … or … a little curving trail.Lexa cocked her head to one side, looking at the trail of stones, the way it curved … Like a C … And there were more trails of stones …‘A pattern … man-made …’ the flame whispered in her mind.She took a few steps back and raised her head a little, widening the circle of light from her headlamp as she looked out at so many trails of stones … there were … a lot of them … one like an X ...Lexa stepped through the maze of stones, turned around and looked out at them again from the other side, took a step back … the light of her headlamp following the trails of rocks …Was it … her name?The circle of light from her headlamp passed over more letters written out in stones as her head turned … and then all the air rushed out of her lungs …
Lexa Come to Shallow Valley. Safe. - C. G.
Lexa’s jaw fell open.
What?!?
C. G.?!?A message from Clarke written in the ruins of her city?Lexa shook her head.Clarke wasn’t on the ground.Clarke was in space.She looked out at the trails of stones again.Read the message again.And again.The message, the reality sinking in a little deeper each time.
Who else could it possibly be?
Who else knew where the bunker was?Where she was …And the stones from the rubble … they had to have been placed there after the death wave for the letters to be undisturbed …It had to be a a natblida … a natblida who knew where the bunker was …Lexa crouched down by the stones, reached out and touched them to make sure that they were actually real.
Clarke.
She was … here?She … hadn’t left ...She had never left.And … she was okay?
Safe?
In Shallow Valley?!?That … wasn’t even that far …Six days away?A serious trek without horses … but … 6 days … 7 or 8 if the weather was bad … away from Clarke …Not an impossible distance away. Not miles of empty air and cold space away.Here.On Earth.On the ground.And she was safe.Lexa’s heart was hammering in her chest.She covered her face with her hands, her eyes prickling with tears … And then tilted her head back and looked up at the stars. And a huge grin spread across her face.Goddamnit Clarke.She wasn’t in the stars. She was under them. Just like her.And she was safe.Lexa had never been so happy to be lied to in her entire life.She walked all the way around the massive pile of stones where the building over the bunker had been. Saw the letters spelling out the same message on all three sides.
Lexa Come to Shallow Valley. Safe. - C. G.
Lexa was grinning so hard her cheeks hurt.Clarke was there.In Shallow Valley.She was alive.She had been here. To the bunker.Clarke’s hands had touched these stones.She had stood where Lexa was now standing.Lexa swiveled the headlamp around. Found the hole she had bashed her way out of. Found the hammer and pulled up more of the cobblestones around the edges, widening the hole a little further, and then lowered herself back down.She stepped and slid over the loose stones on the tunnel floor, headed back inside to decontaminate ... and start her planning.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The next morning, Lexa brought the 5 oldest natblidas through the tunnel and up to the surface. Watched their faces, those faces that had spent two years underground. Faces that were more mature with time and experience, and even wisdom from their responsibilities as Lexa’s lieutenants in the bunker, from their roles working alongside the supervisors who oversaw various aspect of bunker operations, cataloguing and reporting back to Lexa and the clan council.They were such solid little leaders now … Well, not so little now. Aden was 16. The oldest of them. Four more of them were between 10 and 14. Three of them older than Lexa had been when she’d ascended at 12.Lexa was proud of that. Of keeping herself alive so they hadn’t had to fight one another in the conclave … Buying them their childhoods, their lives, those extra years. Years without the crushing burden of supreme leadership that she’d had to shoulder at 12.And now, they would never have to fight one another to the death in a conclave. Human life was far too precious and rare to squander in the world the were living in now. And that included the natblidas’ lives too.The entire conclave system was going to be different now.No more fights to the death. She had decreed it in their first year underground. Had simply chosen Aden as her successor. Had made Gaia swear an oath to honor her choice.The natblidas were now just a line of potential successors to Heda who would be ready to take on the mantle of leadership if necessary. New tests would have to be devised to determine who among them would take up the mantle of Heda if one was lost going forward.Tests based on whatever abilities, whatever qualities were most necessary and valuable for a leader to possess under these new circumstances they now found themselves in.She hadn’t worked out all the details with Gaia yet, but that would happen in time.The nature of being Heda, the people who the natblidas would ascend to lead had so changed.The entire population of the bunker constituted merely a large village now.Everyone was a familiar face.There were no foreign enemies anymore.And the people of the bunker would have to work as a unit, to coordinate and collaborate to survive. Would only survive if they worked together and pulled in the same direction.Lexa had made sure to impart that message every day to the people in the bunker.
We pull together, or we will tear ourselves apart.
And if something happened to her, Aden would ascend and continue to emphasize that message.She had simply chosen him to take on the role if something happened to her. He had proven himself in the bunker time and time again … through his curiosity and interest in learning everything he could about the bunker, through the good relationships he had built by getting to know everyone and letting them get to know him. Through the affection and goodwill he had garnered through his quiet attention to everyone’s needs, their well-being. Through his honesty and reliability.He was trusted.He was loved.The older nightbloods were steady, reliable, and hard working too. Would be worthy replacements for Aden if anything happened to him. They had the self assurance that came with age, and with gradually increasing responsibilities that they could master one step at a time, piece by piece, rather than being thrown headfirst into total responsibility, total leadership that pulled them in dozens of different directions at once.The natblidas in the bunker would very likely be the last to ever hold the flame.Nightblood was so rare, and the entire population of humanity was so small now. When the last of them died, others would likely have to be put in charge based on a different system of governance, until either another natblida was born … or perhaps the flame would be retired altogether …Lexa watched as her natblidas looked around at the ruins of Polis in the early morning light, blinking, rubbing their eyes. Feeling the sunlight on their faces for the first time in years.They might have been hiding tears too.Lexa’s own eyes were a little watery as she looked out at what was left of her city in the daylight. It was a depressing sight.She didn’t bother hiding her watery eyes though.It was just them there.Her and her children, for all intents and purposes.She watched the expressions shift across their faces as they took it all in. As they kicked at rocks. As they looked out at the landscape of fallen buildings … their foreheads creasing with determination as they thought through the implications ...And then Lexa called them over and showed them Clarke’s message in the stones.Aden’s eyes snapped to Lexa, “Shallow Valley? That’s only …”“Six days …,” Lexa smiled at him, “But the terrain may have changed … Preparations for the journey will have to be made with great care … plenty of water and rations. Preparation for any type of weather that might be encountered. Hot or cold. We do not know.”Lexa looked around at the ruined city surrounding them, “It isn’t like before. We cannot rely on forests to feed us now … or for shelter to be found …”Aden nodded slowly.“So … Clarke is here …,” one of the oldest natblidas, Reva, gave Lexa a little grin, “C. G. … Clarke Griffin …”“Yes …,” Lexa smiled back at her, her voice cracking with emotion. She cleared her throat, “And it appears she knows this new world better than we do. Has already found a place where she can survive. Her wisdom will help guide us. As it has since she came to us …”‘A blessing,’ Lexa thought to herself. Clarke was a gift from the sky. A force of nature who would stop at nothing to see her people safe.“Who will go?” Aden looked at her.“I will.” Lexa answered.The natblidas cast little glances at each other.“Heda …,” Aden started.But Lexa raised a hand, “Only a natblida can survive on the ground. For the next 3 years Skykru says. And we cannot know what will be encountered on this journey ...”The natblidas exchanged more wordless glances.“If we send someone else, their radiation suit could tear and a life, one of the precious lives we shepherd could be lost …,” Lexa continued, “We cannot afford such sacrifices anymore. Each and every life is sacred.”“One of us should go …,” Penn, another of the oldest natblidas, stepped forward.“I considered it …,” Lexa lied, “But Clarke has told me to come in her message. And if something happens to me, you must all be here to look after our people.”Aden stepped close to her, “If something happens to you … If the flame is lost …”Lexa shook her head and looked back at him, “The flame is staying here. With you.”Aden’s eyebrows raised.“I will remove the flame before I leave and hand it down to you …,” Lexa continued, “And when I return, you may return it to me the same way …”
Or perhaps …
Lexa looked away.“Lexa …,” Aden said, taking her hand as if he was still a small child, “Please … we need you.”“And you will have me …,” Lexa smiled at him and ran a hand through his hair, then tapped the side of his head, “I will be in here … with you … guiding you … helping you … every step of the way. Gaia will be by your side to aide you as well. Indra. The council. All the other natblidas.”Aden sighed and looked at the ground, squeezed Lexa’s hand.“I am so proud of you …,” Lexa looked out at them, “Each of you. You have faced a trial that none of you were trained for. You listened and learned. Adapted. Took on new responsibilities … You have taken such good care of our people … and they will need all of you. Your wisdom. Your compassion and strength to guide them. And you must help one another. Be each other’s eyes and ears. Offer one another council and support. None of you will bear the responsibilities of leadership alone. That time has ended. We work together for our people now. As a family.”Lexa’s gaze shifted to Aden, “And while I am gone, you will be the head of this family.”Aden stood up straighter.“I do not know what I will find on my journey … and we must be careful to manage our people’s expectations …,” Lexa looked at the natblidas, “For now … we will say only that I am going on a scouting mission to learn of our new world. I will have your oath that you will reveal nothing more.”The natblidas stood up straighter and said in unison, “Sha Heda.”“While I am away … you must listen to Aden as you would hear me …,” Lexa added, “Aden and I will speak with one voice …”“Sha Heda.”“You needn’t go alone …,” Aden looked at her, “One of us can go with you …”Lexa gave him a soft smile, “Anything that can defeat me can defeat two … If I do not return, then the next journey to the valley should be a group … when it’s safe to send a team out on the ground.”Aden’s forehead furrowed, “In three years?”Lexa nodded, “I have every intention of returning. It is not so far a trek. But if I am lost along the way, then you will know that the danger was greater than what someone with my skills could defeat. And the next time, you must send a team who is prepared for that.” —- Seven days.That was what the trek had taken in the end.And seven days before that to tell the clan council that she had reached the surface and was going out on a scouting mission, and then to tell all the people in the bunker about it, and the temporary change in leadership. To say the passphrase to remove the flame from the back of her neck and have Gaia give the flame to Aden. To ensure that he had taken it successfully, and prepare herself for the journey.The people of the bunker were riding high on the news that they had a way up to the ground.And Lexa did not bother hiding her grin when she had assembled her people and told them the news.Did not hide her relief when she told Abby privately about Clarke having left a message saying that she was safe. Lexa had held her while she cried. Had shared in her relief.There had been so much comfort in seeing Abby in the bunker each day.Over their two years of living underground, Lexa had seen so much of Clarke in her mother. Or rather, had seen just how much of Abby was in Clarke.Clarke’s mother was doggedly hard working. So committed to the well-being of their people. Threw herself into doing whatever needed doing, whatever was asked of her.She had Lexa’s respect.And Abby had given Lexa a letter to take to Clarke on the morning of her journey.Lexa had carefully tucked it into the pocket of her leather jacket and pulled Abby into a hug unselfconsciously.This woman had given her Clarke. Loved Clarke fiercely. Had raised her. Cared for her. Watched over her. Had made such huge sacrifices for her … And Lexa would be forever grateful to her for that.And life in the bunker had made Lexa softer.Sympathy. Compassion. Understanding. Creative problem solving. Her sense of humor. Those had been her most valuable weapons in the bunker.There’d had to be law and order as well of course … Punishments for crimes Lexa had had to mete out measured justice for.But bonds were what would ultimately ensure the survival of her people now.Everyone in the bunker had been through so much … and Lexa had changed to be the kind of leader they needed now. The kind of person they needed now.Had showed them a bit more of the humanity that she had so rarely had the latitude to show when she’d had to manage 13 power hungry clans fighting each other for dominance before praimfaya.With only 1,200 souls left, their survival would depend on unity. On mutual aid. And she had tried her very best to model that herself.Sometimes just a hand on a shoulder, a sigh, and a certain look from her was enough to stop someone’s foolishness. A look that said, “I know. This is so hard. I feel it too.”When she pulled herself out of the tunnel and pulled on her backpack at the start of her journey, she took a moment to look at Clarke’s message written in the stones again.There was so much hope in just those few words.Clarke.Safe.The two most important two words in Lexa’s vocabulary.Those words carried her feet on the long walk out of Polis. Made her pack of water and rations, knives and an extra set of clothes feel a little lighter on her back.She had stripped down her gear to what she could only guess would be essential for her journey.Mostly water and food, which she used as sparingly as possible, and which she was glad to have done when her trek led her through a desert.She had a map, but the position of the sun and her compass were her only reliable guides now.The terrain was so transformed.Unrecognizable.But the compass, the steady pointing of the needle, told her all she needed to know, with a certainty and clarity that was comforting.The pack got a little lighter as she made her trek. As she consumed the bare minimum of her water and rations day by day.Trudging through the desert was slow going. The shifting sand under her feet wearing out all her little muscles that had to work to balance her on the unsteady footing.The nights were extremely cold. Especially given the lack of shelter … the lack of anything to stop the constant winds whipping by. The lack of anything to make a campfire out of.But Lexa had managed to sleep pretty well. The sand wasn’t a bad surface to sleep on really. It was sort of soft. She could burrow into it so it molded to the shape of her body and kept a little heat in. And she put on every stitch of clothing she had under her leather jacket before she went to sleep to keep warm too.There was one really bad night though. When she’d woken up in the pitch black darkness to the sound of howling winds and the feeling of shards of glass slashing at any exposed skin that wasn’t covered by her clothes.A sandstorm.A sandstorm of glass.Lexa pulled up the neck of her shirt to cover her nose and mouth. Put her jacket over her head and arms. Burrowed down deeper into the sand for protection. And when the wind whipped off the sand covering her, she burrowed in even deeper.When the storm cleared, when she burrowed out and stood up the next morning, sand pouring off her clothes, it was like the sandstorm had never happened. The morning sky was full of clouds tinted pink and orange from the sunrise. The sand dunes surrounding her, the bane of her existence for days, reflected back the pinkish light.The sight was unarguably beautiful.Majestic and grand.Made her feel small.In a good way.It was so beautiful that it almost felt like an apology for the night before.But maybe Lexa’s favorite part of the trek had been the quiet in her mind.There were no commanders in her head anymore.No dreams and nightmares full of messages about how to handle all of her responsibilities and alerting her to potential threats.Her thoughts were only her own now.She’d had the flame for so long, she had forgotten what it felt like to have a mind that was entirely her own. That was so quiet and still.When she had first taken the flame, she’d been so daunted by all the vast responsibilities that had been handed to her at 12. All those voices and dreams and ‘suggestions’ had been such a comfort. And they would be a comfort to Aden now too. Especially her own voice in his mind that would tell him what she would do in his place, and that would reveal to him just how much confidence she had always had in him … How proud she was of him … All the things she had seen in him that gave her so much faith in him.He would understand, finally, fully, just how well suited he was for the role, and he would know exactly why that was the case.And she took great comfort in how the people in the bunker had reacted to the news that Aden would be taking the flame in her absence. The other natblidas had rallied around him, as Lexa had hoped they would. Lexa saw the reverence and respect they’d always shown her shift to Aden after he went through the ritual and took the flame.The natblidas had mobbed Lexa with long hugs before she’d left. The older ones had given her the exact advice she would have given them if they were making the trek, doing their best Heda Lexa impersonations. It made her laugh so hard she had nearly cried.Without the flame, the natblidas had looked at her differently, with a kind of tenderness. A tenderness for Lexa … For the person she was, not the commander they looked up to. And seeing that made Lexa’s heart feel like it would burst.The send off from them squeezed at her heart as she made her journey.She felt them with her as she basked in the stillness. In the wide open spaces. In the quiet. In the austere beauty of the sand dunes. In just how different it was from life in the bunker.When she made it out of the desert, when the sand turned to sandy dirt, she hiked through a vast landscape of charred trees burned black from the radiation, completely bare of any green, bare of any branches.She imagined what it must have been like before.The smell of the forest that was missing.The sounds of wind moving through their branches, of birds in their boughs.She would have to keep those memories close now, recall them often to keep them fresh.Keep the birds and grasses and trees and all the animals of the forest alive in her heart.Remembering them was the only way she could keep from dropping to her knees and weeping over all of the beauty that had been lost …At least there weren’t glass storms though.And that was a huge comfort as she hiked through the stands of charred trees.On the afternoon of the seventh day, her calves ached as she made her way up the side of a steep embankment. The incline was so steep that she was pulling herself up with her arms nearly as much as she was pushing herself up with her legs.But god … she was close.So close.Close to Clarke.She tried to keep her pace steady, didn’t want to wear herself out entirely incase she had miscalculated the distance and still had even further to go today.But she couldn’t keep thoughts of Clarke totally at bay anymore.All throughout the trek, she had tried to stay grounded in the present. In the moment. In the next steps that lay ahead of her feet. In making steady progress.If she’d thought of Clarke, that would not have been possible. She’d be unfocused.Would get lost in worry over what kind of state Clarke would be in when she found her.Would start running and pull a muscle that would only delay her arrival.She made her way up the steep embankment, her arms aching as she pulled herself up the high ridge, even though her pack was a little lighter on her back now from the absence of the rations and water that she had used so sparingly … in case Clarke needed them.When she pulled herself up over the steep ledge and then up onto her feet, Lexa’s jaw fell open.Before her lay a valley.A valley filled with green trees. A valley that was so lush and gorgeous that her eyes didn’t know where to look. Every place her eyes fell was a marvel of color … Such a contrast to the sand and charred trees she’d been hiking through for days and days.The memories she’d been holding onto, of forests, of trees, of shades of green, of breezes swaying branches, it was like all those memories she’d been steeling herself with on her long trek had suddenly come to life, stretched out before her.How was this real?Was it real?She was very thirsty and hungry.It was entirely possible that she was hallucinating from so many days under the hot sun … from drinking and eating so little …Lexa pulled a canteen out of her pack and drank deeply for the first time on her trip. Ate some of her rations. Still breathing heavy from the hike up the embankment, from her big gulp of water, looking out at the beautiful valley stretched before her.
Still there.
The people in the bunker, they would … have a home.A real home.They wouldn’t have to live in the crumbling ruins of Polis. Surviving off the horrid food the farm in the bunker produced.They would see trees again. See beauty again.A gust of wind rushed past and Lexa closed her eyes and pulled in a deep breath.
Concentrated on the smells on the breeze.The valley was still a trek down the other side of the big embankment, but she thought she could smell a hint of rich earth. Her nose twitched from the scent of something a little sweet. Flowers maybe?She felt a sting in her cheeks. She hadn’t even realized how hard she’d been smiling as she stared out at the valley.
God, she had done it.
Their people would be safe. Would have a world worth living in again, worth waking up to each morning, worth taking care of.A world that would inspire them to live.She felt lightheaded.The fear, the worry she’d been carrying with her every waking moment for the last two years about what kind of life her people would have to endure after their years underground wooshed out of her all at once … and a pure, wild joy flooded in to take its place.Lexa threw back her head and yelled out as loud as she possibly could, “Clarke!”Clarke had done it.She’d saved them.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Lexa trekked down into the valley, her heart soaring at the sound, at the feeling of grass under her feet.She had taken off her shoes just to feel the soft earth under her soles again. The cool blades of grass tickling her toes. Tears streaming down her cheeks at just that simple feeling, that feeling she thought she would never have again, something so simple, so common and unremarkable in her life before the bunker that it seemed impossible that she could have missed it so much.She walked through a field of wildflowers, holding out her hands, but not touching them. They were too precious to touch. Too holy for her fingers. Every flower a work of art. Every blade of grass a miracle. She heard birds in the trees ahead. Could smell water on the breeze. Dirt. The sweetness of life. Everywhere her eyes landed was an explosion of color. Colors she hadn’t seen in years.Even the dirt. The rich loamy dirt under her feet was a miracle. Such a sight for her sore eyes after trekking through so many miles of sand and scorched earth.This rich dirt meant food for her people. Real food.But there was so much beauty … she could barely think about that.Without the flame in her head telling her to calculate the survival utility of each new thing her eyes landed on, she was free to just bask in the splendor of it all, to feel the damage from years of being surrounded by concrete walls and artificial light starting to heal in her brain.This was a wild place. Made for living things. For life.Of course Clarke would find this place.Lexa had been in a bunker.Surviving.But not Clarke.She had found a place worth living in.At first, Lexa had been cupping her hands around her mouth and calling out to Clarke every hundred yards or so. Afraid that she would walk right past her. But now, her voice was almost completely gone. Hoarse and ragged from all the yelling.So she was left to take in the valley in silence. The insects, the birds, the shifting of the earth and grass under her bare feet the only sounds.Every part of the valley was such a sight to behold that she would likely have been struck speechless by now anyway as she walked deeper into the valley. She’d crested the high embankment at one end of the valley, walked straight down into it, and then just kept walking. Followed the first little trail she came across. Her compass was of no use to her now.This was her destination. Now all she needed to do was find her home. The person living here who was her home.God … the trees … walking under their cool shade after walking for so long with a shirt wrapped around her head to protect from the sun … feeling the rough bark of their trunks against her fingertips …A forest … A real forest …Trikru would be thrilled.She heard something scamper by in the underbrush … a rabbit maybe … and her stomach growled at the idea of eating meat. She hadn’t eaten meat in so long … hadn’t had a proper meal in so long …She walked quietly through the trees, her heart singing with joy, a huge smile on her face.She plucked a berry off a vine wrapped around a tree … She hadn’t really liked those kinds of berries before … but that was before. She was far less picky these days … And here, now, in that moment, even its sourness tasted incredible.She kept walking through the forest, eyes trailing around the lushness, taking it all in.She heard a twig snap in the bushes ahead of her and froze.Maybe another rabbit.God … if there were rabbits here that would be a godsend.Where there were a pair of rabbits there were a hundred more.Lexa stood still, hoping to catch a glimpse of the creature.She hadn’t seen a little furry forest creature in so long …  She’d mourned their loss along with the loss of her people on the ground. The animals, they were her people’s brothers and sisters, their partners on this earth, in this life. They were beauty and quickness, cleverness and strength incarnate.Lexa held absolutely still, old hunting instincts kicking in, eyes trained on the bushes, looking for even the slightest movement.She heard the sound of dirt shifting, another twig snapping, and then watched in slow motion as a girl stood up from behind the bush.Lexa’s eyes went wide.Old Lexa would have been shocked that someone so young had the skill to sneak up on her, to get within a dozen feet of her without being detected. Old Lexa would have been deeply disappointed with herself for getting distracted and not looking out for threats. Old Lexa would have a hand on her weapon right now.But new Lexa was just shocked by the sight of an unfamiliar face.She hadn’t seen an unfamiliar face in years.One of her people had survived the radiation.A child.Lexa’s whole expression softened as she took in the girl. She was Louwoda Kliron Kru. Clearly. Her clothes. Her braids.She looked like Clarke.Lexa shook her head a little and thought, ‘Get ahold of yourself. Not everyone is Clarke …’“Lexa.”Lexa’s gaze snapped up to meet the girl’s.It wasn’t a question.It was a statement.The girl had a huge smile on her face. Her blue-green eyes were all sparkly. She looked like she was about to pop with joy.Lexa gave a shallow nod, and then croaked out in Trig, in her raspy voice, barely above a whisper after calling out to Clarke so many times before she’d lost her voice, “Where ste Clarke?”The girl put her hand over her mouth and then pointed off to the side of the little trail, where it curved down toward a clearing.Lexa slid her backpack off her shoulders and let it drop to the ground, stepped forward and crouched down in front of the girl, put a hand so lightly on the girl’s cheek, as if she might disappear, and said quietly, “Ai laik krei happy gon ai op yu.”
I am so happy to see you.
Lexa leaned forward a little and the girl leaned forward too. They rested their foreheads together.Two years ago, this would have been such a wildly inappropriate greeting for Lexa to give a total stranger. This gesture that was reserved for only closest kin, parents and children, siblings and lovers.But this child was her people, this lost child of Louwoda Kliron Kru was her family. They were all family now.The girl surged forward and hugged her, mumbled “Monin hou Heda” into her shoulder.
Welcome home Heda.
Lexa wrapped her arms around the girl, swaying her back and forth a little, as if she was comforting a much younger child.She leaned back and the girl was smiling at her so sweetly, looking at her with so much affection, big tears running down her cheeks.“Ai laik Madi,” she said quietly.Lexa smiled, “Madi kom Louwoda Kliron Kru?”The girl grinned at her and nodded.Lexa grinned too. Louwoda Kliron Kru had been with her in the bunker. They would be overjoyed to know that one of their lost children was alive and well.Madi glanced in the direction she had pointed to earlier and Lexa stood up, put her hand on Madi’s shoulder, just to confirm again that this girl was real.Lexa looked off in that direction too.Emotions roiling in her chest.God … so many feelings.Two years.Two years of thinking that Clarke was in space.Gone forever.Two years of keeping the door to that soft part of her heart closed and locked. Putting all of her focus on her people.Only to find out that Clarke had never left.That Clarke had stayed and saved their people instead.Had found them this paradise.Lexa took in a deep breath, let it out slowly.Looked down at Madi who was grinning up at her.God … she was feeling so much … She felt almost afraid to see Clarke.To open the door to the soft spot in her heart that she’d kept closed and locked for so long … that she thought she would never open again.Lexa took in another breath and let it out.Flipped open the lock on that little door in her heart.And took a step.Then another, letting that door slowly creak open as she walked off to the side of the little trail, over to where it curved down to the little clearing.Oh god … she could see her. The back of her anyway. Could see Clarke picking berries off a big green bush that was just teeming with them in the little clearing … Her hair catching the golden afternoon sunlight. Surrounded by lush, beautiful forest on all sides. Her posture so relaxed. More relaxed that Lexa had ever seen her.As Lexa walked through the grass toward her, the lightest, most beautiful sound hit her ears.Clarke was humming to herself.In Lexa’s wildest dreams, she would have never imagined that Clarke’s life after praimfaya would be like this.Lexa stepped through the grass, smiling at the sight of Clarke lost in her own little world. This world of beauty and peace that Clarke so deserved.Her worries strictly berry-related.Lexa stopped a few steps away. Suddenly rethinking this.She … didn’t want to disturb her. Didn’t want to appear, bringing with her all the stories of life in the bunker. The challenges they had faced. The grief over what had been lost.As soon as she appeared, there would be questions. Clarke would expand the scope of her world, the scope of her concerns so far beyond just the quiet work of picking berries in the sunlight. Her world would grow to include the lives of 1,199 people in a bunker miles and miles away.Lexa didn’t want to disturb her peace.This heaven Clarke was living in.So free from planning and worry.She could give her a few more moments of that.But … it was too late …Clarke shifted her stance and turned around.Her face fell when her eyes landed in Lexa.And Lexa saw it all in that moment, in Clarke’s face, the love, the worry over her, the years of waiting, of not knowing … It was in the way Clarke’s eyebrows lifted, in the softness of her expression, in the way Clarke’s face looked so impossibly young and so impossibly old at the same time.Clarke rushed forward and slammed into Lexa’s chest so hard she spun them around. Squeezed her so tight Lexa could barely breath. Nuzzled her nose into the crook of Lexa’s neck and started sobbing. Her fingers gripping Lexa’s shoulders, holding on so tight …Lexa’s eyes slid shut at the feeling of Clarke in her arms. The feeling of Clarke’s warmth against her chest.Clarke.Here.Home.Lexa rubbed her hand in slow circles against her back as Clarke cried in her arms.“You came … You came …,” Clarke was mumbling over and over again. She pressed sloppy kisses against the side of Lexa’s neck and nuzzled in deeper.Lexa didn’t know what to do with the mess of feelings swirling in her chest. She had already cried out all her tears on the walk here. Her heart had already overflowed from just the sight of the valley. From the feeling of grass under her feet. From the overwhelming peace in the knowledge that her people would be ok.This day had already exceeded her wildest dreams.And Clarke being here too?Lexa could only squeeze her arms around her, could only sigh at the feelings too big to fit into words.Clarke sniffled and leaned back, placed her hands so gently on Lexa’s face and just looked into her eyes. Big tears streaming down her cheeks.“You’re here …,” Clarke sighed, and then leaned forward, resting their foreheads together.God … the sound of Clarke’s voice.Lexa couldn’t take it.She leaned in and kissed her, long and slow. Put everything she was feeling into it, everything that was impossible to say.And Clarke did not miss a beat.She slid her hand over the back of Lexa’s neck and angled deeper into the kiss, then reached down with her other hand and grabbed Lexa’s ass.Lexa smiled against her lips.Clarke had missed her.
A lot.
Clarke’s grip over the back of her neck kinda stung … the stitches from when the flame had been removed were still tender.But Lexa wasn’t going to complain. Wasn’t going to tell Clarke to move her hand.As far as Lexa was concerned, Clarke could touch her wherever she wanted whenever she wanted until the end of time.And given the way Clarke’s tongue was  rolling against hers, the way she could feel Clarke’s heart thudding against her chest, the way Clarke’s hand was gripping her ass, they were probably on the same page about that …Lexa let herself get lost in the feeling of Clarke’s kiss. In the warmth of it. In the tenderness of it. In the softness. In the endlessness of it.Her arms squeezed around Clarke’s waist and she lifted her up, spun her around. Clarke was laughing against her mouth, but still didn’t stop kissing her.“You must be …,” Clarke started, and then kissed her again, and then mumbled out, “… tired. Hungry …”“I am all of the feelings …,” Lexa said quietly, her voice still hoarse and raspy, but smiling as she looked into Clarke’s watery eyes, “Every one.”Clarke cocked her head to one side a little, her eyes studying Lexa’s face.Lexa wondered if Clarke could tell. She didn’t have the flame anymore.“I … would not mind a bath …,” Lexa said quietly.Clarke smelled so fresh and clean and gorgeous in her arms that Lexa could not help but be reminded of the fact that after a week of trekking under the hot sun she was … not at her best.Clarke took her hand, “There’s a lake where we swim. Or we can make you a bath.”A lake.She would see a lake again.A perfect paradise.“A swim will be fine …,” Lexa smiled at her, her voice still soft and rough.Clarke called out to the trees for Madi.The girl appeared at the tree line with Lexa’s backpack on her shoulders. Appeared very quickly.But Lexa could not bring herself to be embarrassed of her makeout session with Clarke.She felt so human and alive in this place …They had been extremely restrained under the circumstances.Clarke squeezed her hand as they walked. Kept looking at her. Grinning at her.It was like Clarke couldn’t get close enough. Pressed against her side as they walked.Kept stopping to pull Lexa back into her arms and hold her for a minute before they resumed their walk.Lexa really needed to get clean … If only for her pride.Clarke and Madi walked her to a beautiful little village of wooden houses.Everything laid out just so.Lexa felt her eyes get watery again.God … this place … It was so perfect. A paradise for their people.Lexa looked at the ground and shook her head.“What?“ Clarke squeezed her hand, smiling at her.“This place …,” Lexa sighed and then turned to Madi, “It’s meizen.”Beautiful.Madi puffed up and smiled with her whole face.This was Louwoda Kliron Kru territory after all. Madi’s home.Even if the lines between the clans had blurred considerably.And it gave Lexa a little jolt of secondary pride to see Madi’s obvious pride in her home.This girl … she must be a natblida too to be living on the ground.Clarke must have found her here when she found this place.The girl’s parents must have been hiding her from the conclave.There was no conclave anymore.She was safe.Madi’s parents had done well.Just like Lexa had done well by staying alive to save her natblidas until the conclave system no longer existed.Lexa was grateful to Madi’s parents for breaking the law and keeping her safe.Breaking her law.She smiled at the thought.Lexa stood by as Madi and Clarke had some sort of negotiation about cooking.And Lexa could not stop grinning as she watched them. Even though her cheeks hurt from smiling so much today.Watching Clarke negotiate with this girl ... Everything with Clarke was a negotiation. Even here, in this perfect paradise, she negotiated dinner arrangements in the absence of weightier matters.Clarke came over with a canteen of water for her and pointed her in the direction of a trail to the lake, saying it was very close. Saying that she would bring her a towel and clean clothes.Lexa nodded her thanks, drank the entire canteen of water and handed it back, then headed to the little trail.When she reached to lake, she stood on the bank by the water’s edge, skimmed her bare toes across the glassy surface, her hands on her hips, taking in the splendor of the sparkling water spread before her, and shook her head again.
This place.
A paradise.She peeled off her dirty clothes, sighing to herself at the thought that Clarke had even deigned to touch her in them, had not insisted that Lexa jump into the lake first.She had only brought two pairs of clothes for her trek, and had ended up wearing both of them every night to keep herself warm as she’d slept.Peeling them off now, feeling the warm breeze, the sunlight on her bare skin, felt heavenly.She waded out into the cool water, stood in a spot where it came up to her chest … Already feeling a million times cleaner as the sweat and dirt and grime lifted off her skin.It was shocking that Madi had even recognized her given what Lexa was certain was her pretty disheveled state. Hair windswept and wild from so many days trekking in the wind. So much sand and sweat stuck to her skin.But she smiled at the thought that Clarke had been drawing her. Had shown Madi the drawings. Lexa would bet anything that Clarke had done that. That must have been how Madi had recognized her. Lexa had seen Clarke’s first drawings of her herself, long ago … before they had gotten together …At least … she thought it was the first …Lexa cleaned off her face and neck with her wet hands, ran her fingers through her hair, started trying to sort out all the little tangles. Make herself presentable.She heard a little splash and turned to see Clarke standing at the shoreline. A pile of clothes beside her. A towel.Big rings expanded out in concentric circles across the glassy water between them.Clarke was grinning at her.Clarke had thrown a rock in the water to get her attention.Clarke was … oh … Clarke was going to be joining her …Clarke was pulling off her clothes.Lexa had not seen a naked woman in a while … Had not seen Clarke naked in what felt like a lifetime.And Lexa was not going to look away now.The expanse of Clarke’s tan skin, her soft curves, the rolling muscles Clarke was now covered in … Clarke had gotten stronger in their time apart.Lexa watched. Her heart hammering away in her chest, but keeping her cool … on the surface anyway …Clarke kept her undergarments on, her chest bindings, her underwear, but it did not matter … Partiality naked Clarke was the most erotic thing Lexa had seen in years.And Clarke was walking directly toward her through the water. With that grin on her face … the one that was just for her …Clarke’s hair was shorter now. Her golden waves only reached down to just above her shoulders.
How had she missed that?
Clarke’s hair had a stripe of pink in it now too.And if Lexa didn’t have more cleaning up to do, she would have waded straight to her and given Clarke exactly what she was so clearly after.But as it was, she simply grinned back at her and started working on unknotting the next little tangle in her hair.Clarke seemed undaunted though. She came right up to her in the water and asked innocently, “Can I help?”Ok, maybe not so innocently … There was nothing innocent about Clarke’s grin. No matter what she said. No matter how she said it. That grin was completely shameless.Lexa gave a shallow nod, because even though she still didn’t feel clean enough yet, she had already mentally committed to the idea of letting Clarke touch her wherever she wanted whenever she wanted just seconds after seeing her again.And oh … how Clarke hands wandered.She was standing behind Lexa now, was helping her untangle her hair, but was also occasionally running her fingers down the side of Lexa’s neck.Lexa pretended to be focused on untangling the next little knot between her fingers, but she subtly leaned her head to one side, as if she was looking more closely at it. But really, she was just giving Clarke a little more arch in her neck to trail her fingers across, which Clarke immediately did.And either Clarke had gotten all the tangles out in the back of her hair, or she had simply abandoned the task altogether … because after a few minutes, she was just slowly running her hands back and forth across Lexa’s shoulders as Lexa cleaned her front. Then Clarke started running her hands down Lexa’s back in the barest pretense of helping to clean her that Lexa could imagine.It was working though. Lexa’s skin did feel a little cleaner in the gentle wake of Clarke’s hands, but a part of her also felt a lot dirtier too.Clarke was kinda sighing as she ran her hands over Lexa’s muscly arms.“Someone’s gotten stronger …,” Clarke whispered against the side of her neck.And it was true. Lexa had never stopped her training. And had added to that swinging a hammer at hard stone every night.“Two someones it appears …,” Lexa grinned back.Clarke stepped in close, very close, tight against her, pressing her soft breasts against Lexa’s back. Lexa could feel Clarke’s hard nipples through the material of Clarke’s chest bindings, and it took everything in Lexa not to moan.But honestly, she really needed to eat something. And take a nap.She also kinda liked torturing Clarke like this.She fully intended to spend the night giving Clarke countless toe curling, mind blowing climaxes.She was imagining it right at that very moment in fact.And perhaps she would also tease Clarke a little, tell Clarke that she was merely doing it as a thank you to her … you know, for helping her people.Way back when Clarke was still pretending she wasn’t in love with her, Clarke had told Lexa over and over again that the things she kept doing that showed Lexa just how much she loved her were merely things she was doing “for my people”. Even though Lexa had politely pointed out that the “for my people” logic didn’t actually make sense in those instances. For example, when Clarke’s people would have been fine either way. When Clarke attempting to murder Lexa’s enemy, the Ice Queen, wasn’t a smart move at all for Clarke’s people. And that logic hadn’t explained why Clarke looked at her like she wanted to lick her way up Lexa’s thighs either, that look she gave her that was such a blatant invitation for Lexa to bed her against the nearest surface.Clarke had always looked at her like that.And right then, Clarke’s wandering hands were sliding over a particularly sensitive part of Lexa’s lower back, over the trail of tattoos on Lexa’s spine … The symbols she’d gotten etched onto her skin in black ink after her conclave against her fellow nightbloods.“Madi is a natblida …” Lexa said quietly.Clarke’s hands froze.Lexa turned around in the water to face her, “She survived because of nightblood … Like you?”Clarke looked back at her, but didn’t say anything.Clarke knew the old law. About the conclave. How all nightbloods were supposed to be delivered to Polis. How when one Heda passed, the natblidas had fight each other to the death in the conclave so that the winner, the strongest among them, could become the next Heda.But things had changed in the bunker. Life was more precious now. Could not be wasted like that. Everyone understood that now.Lexa ran her thumb gently across Clarke’s cheek and said quietly, “The conclave system has changed. There are no more fights to the death. She is safe … in that respect.”Clarke let out a breath.Lexa smiled at her softly, “You love her.”“Yes.” Clarke answered instantly.Lexa nodded.She expected nothing less. Clarke had a huge heart. She loved so deeply.Clarke sighed and ran a hand through Lexa’s now tangle free hair, “Can we talk about something else?”Lexa gave her a little grin, “We don’t have to talk at all ...”Clarke grinned back at her at the memory they shared and then leaned their foreheads together.“… because I still have some cleaning up to do …” Lexa added quietly.Clarke leaned back and smirked at her.Lexa had been wrong in her thinking when she’d first seen Clarke in the little clearing. Even now, with the heavy reality of their situation outside the valley hovering over them, the hundreds of lives they were responsible for, the future of humanity no less, she could still give Clarke these light moments. Make her smirk like that. Tease her. Flirt with her.Lexa had been trained her entire life to fight. Trained and practiced for countless hours until she was the fiercest of warriors.But underneath it all, Lexa was a lover. A charmer. She knew how to seduce people. With ideas. With the tone of her voice. With the right little gesture or smile at the right moment. With how she managed the space between bodies. And no one had taught her that.That was all Lexa.Lexa sucked in a breath and sank down into the water, dunking herself, running her hands through her hair as she stayed under for a few moments to shake the last of the sand and grime out of her hair.Then she stood up tall in the water, her hands moving in practiced motions, twisting her long chestnut hair to squeeze out the water. Feeling the cool drops sliding down her face, dripping down her neck, her shoulders, across the top of her chest, her muscly arms on full display.And Clarke just stared back at her … her jaw working a little as she watched, like she was kinda chewing on something as her eyes dusted over Lexa’s now clean face.Clarke made a sound that was halfway between a growl and a grunt.And she didn’t look embarrassed about it either.Lexa raised a teasing eyebrow, “Hungry?”And then she finished tying up her hair in a little bun and turned away, walked slowly through the water to the shore, felt the line of water around her shoulders move lower and lower against her skin with each step she took toward the shallows. Felt it move down her muscly shoulders, down the curve of her spine, down her thighs, down her calves, down to the backs of her ankles as she stepped out onto the shore.She didn’t need to look back. She could feel Clarke’s eyes all over her.She slid her hands over her body under the pretense of removing excess water so she didn’t get the towel so wet that it would be useless for Clarke, but she could just imagine the look on Clarke’s face at her little display … Could practically hear Clarke growling in her mind.She heard sloshing in the water behind her as Clarke stepped through it to the shore and Lexa smiled to herself.She picked up the towel Clarke had brought and lightly dried herself so as not to get it too wet.When Clarke reached the shore, she shook out her short blonde waves like a dog and grinned at her. Her blue eyes sparkling with mischief.Lexa held out the towel, still standing there completely naked, in all her tan, muscly glory.Clarke took it with a little sigh and Lexa started slipping on the clothes Clarke had brought her. The underwear. A very soft shirt. No chest bindings. Some black leather pants that fit surprisingly well for not being tailored to fit her, and that felt so familiar. Just like her black leather Heda uniform. Pulled the soft sweater Clarke had brought her over her head, over the soft shirt.Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Clarke slipping her shirt and pants back on.It was almost painful to see Clarke’s tan skin and shifting muscles disappear under her clothes ... Lexa could only bear it in little glimpses.Clarke was so beautiful.Lexa had not forgotten.But no image in her mind could capture how so much of Clarke’s beauty was in the way she moved, in both her elegance and her clumsiness. In her unselfconsciousness. In her comfort in her own skin. In the little furrow on her forehead as her fingers fastened each of the little buttons up the front of her shirt.Though she left a number of the buttons open at the top.Because she was clearly trying to give Lexa a heart attack with the magnificent view of soft, tan cleavage.Lexa hugged her arms around herself and looked away. Grounding herself in the feeling of the soft sweater under her hands. Tried to steady out her breathing so she didn’t pass out.Her heart pounding wildly in her chest.Clarke picked up Lexa’s old clothes, tied them up in a bundle in the towel, reached over and took Lexa’s hand, started walking her back to the little village.Gave her hand gentle squeezes now and then as they walked the trail.It was all still so overwhelming for Lexa. Being there, in this paradise, with Clarke. Finding one of her people, a child, alive and thriving. Happy.In the bunker, Lexa had tried to make spaces for happiness. Some of her people had had instruments in their belongings when they’d been brought to the bunker, and Lexa was eternally grateful to them for that.They played music in the mess hall in the evenings on little hand carved reed flutes. Drums. Stringed instruments. With little gourd shakers half filled with sand or pebbles. That such simple things could lift something as weighty as the human spirit … make smiles on faces that were so weary … that they were just as necessary as the nutritionally sufficient (but oh so underwhelming) food in the mess hall had been an important realization for Lexa.There had been a closet full of games in the bunker too. Cards that could be used to play a seemingly infinite number of games. Chess and checkers. Backgammon. Chinese checkers. A game simply called “Go”. Some of the clans had fashioned the components of their games as well. Made rectangular wooden boards with a series of little scoops carved into the wood. The game had elaborate rules about how each player moved their stones from one little divot on the board to the next on their turn, where the goal was to move all of one’s pebbles around to the other side of the board before one’s opponent did. Her people had come up with games of chance. Games of balance and skill. Games that involved hopping and balancing on squares drawn out on the concrete floors. Games that involved twisting and contorting one’s limbs without falling, getting into certain positions that were called out. Abby had tried to ban that game after she started seeing pulled muscles show up in the clinic. But Lexa would not forbid her people their small pleasures. On the contrary. They were necessary. Sacred. Just as the sessions of slow coordinated movements together in the mornings were, everyone all together in the big open space in the main chamber of the bunker.Seeing everyone moving together, silent and fluid, on all the different levels of the main chamber, moving as one, following the movements of the teacha on the lowest level … it was as close to seeing the beauty of nature that any of them got to see in the bunker. The fluid movements of hands and arms like the movements of the beautiful rivers they had lost, like the movements of wind through the branches of the trees they had lost. The crouching positions like the crouching of the animals they had lost.There was so much peace in it. Sometimes people cried as they did the movements. Hugged the people next to them when it was over.The movement sessions were another innovation of the Sky People.And Lexa had come to understand Skykru so much better after having lived with them in the bunker. How living in space, in confined quarters so much like the bunker, had given them a kind of strength so different from the strength the other clans  possessed. A kind of strength that couldn’t win in a battle of hand to hand combat, a kind of endurance that couldn’t chase down a big animal for miles through a forest, but rather, that was a down to business, steely resolve to endure. To put up with thousands of tiny inconveniences … with cramped quarters and bare walls and stale air. Surrendering of the softest, most human parts of themselves in order to persevere through their ideas, with whatever parts of themselves remained when they reached the other side.Lexa squeezed Clarke’s hand.The experience had made her understand Clarke better too. Her determination to make life on the ground work for her people. To give them that. To return their humanity to them. Her confidence in them that they would come around … eventually … if given enough time and motivation. Lexa had learned that so many of Skykru’s seemingly small and pedantic concerns, their obsession with protocols and rules, came from living in such a small little indoor world, where little things and precision could matter so much. Could be the difference between life and death.Skykru were warriors. They were just warriors of a different kind. Warriors of sacrifice. Of ingenuity. Of stubborn will. Of good ideas and slow, arduous overcoming.Clarke was the living embodiment of so many of their ideals.And that experience helped Lexa understand what a paradise like the valley would mean to Clarke after all her years in space. If she had been living here for two years, that was much longer than she had lived in Lexa’s world of clans and politics and vast stretches of wilderness that spanned hundreds of miles.A little pocket paradise like this, a valley, contained, but still large enough to roam in probably felt like a good balance to her.When their steps brought them back to the little village, Lexa pulled Clarke into her arms and held her for a long time.Years had separated them. Vastly different life circumstances had separated them. Lexa had been living in a bunker, so much like the Ark Clarke had grown up in. Clarke had been living in a wilderness paradise, like the world Lexa had grown up in.And now, together, finally reunited after all the time and distance, they were probably more alike than they had ever been. Could understand each other so much better than they ever had.Lexa sighed and nuzzled her face against Clarke’s shoulder and Clarke’s arm squeezed around her.And then Lexa noticed that her hands were trembling, that her breaths coming out a little uneven from … everything … all at once.“It’s a lot … Seeing all this … after …” Clarke said quietly.Lexa nodded a little against her shoulder and squeezed her back.God … she felt like such a child in that moment …She’d walked so many thousands of steps to get there, on legs that were so strong and built for the trek. But she had been so narrowly focused on her next steps. And now that she had arrived, she was noticing this new unsteadiness that lived so deep in her bones now … that she was just beginning to feel. An unsteadiness from merely being surrounded by nature again, being in wide open expanses rather than being bounded in by concrete walls, where every place she went had a ceiling, a predefined width and length and depth that bound the space for living. Where how far one could see, how far one could go always had a clear endpoint that wasn’t far away at all. Where everything was straight lines and smooth bare walls and so much gray.Out here, views stretched out to infinity. Out here, there were the elegant curves and symmetry of nature. Patterns of boundless variety, jagged lines and unpredictable disarray. Out here was intricate detail and textures and endless shades of color. So much variety of color.It felt like her eyes had to adjust to perceive the vast distances again. Like her fingers had to adjust to the feeling of so many different textures again. Like her brain had to adjust to comprehend all the detail and color and richness. The profound beauty of it all.Clarke leaned back a little and looked into her eyes, put a hand on Lexa’s cheek and said softly, “This is your home now. This is where you belong.”Lexa leaned their foreheads together and nodded a little.Yes. That feeling in her chest … the foreignness she felt prickling at her brain from being here, it was a false feeling. From too much time underground, every minute of every day living in that prison had tricked her brain into a false sense of ‘normal’. But that hadn’t been normal at all.This was normal.That was false.She was made for this world, not that one.There, safety came from thick walls and following endless rules and schedules and protocols. Eating everything on your plate no matter what it tasted like.Here, safety came from you. From inside you. Came from flexibility. From paying attention and observing and reacting in the moment to whatever unexpected surprise might appear. From using all of your senses to become a part of the world around you, an extension of it.Lexa could hardly believe how much just two years underground had changed her. Had created that feeling of separateness between her and the environment she inhabited.How had Clarke lived for so many years in space like that? Grown up in that kind of environment and turned out ok?And yet she had.Here she was. In this paradise. Full of lightness and happiness. With all her humanity restored after nearly two decades of her soul living in hibernation in cold space. Moving with confidence and ease through this world she could have scarcely been able to even imagine living in space.Lexa would make this adjustment too. No problem.That unsteady feeling in her chest would go away.Clarke was living proof of that.It was all just … very new right now.Was going to take a little time to adjust.For this to become normal and not be so entirely overwhelmed by how completely miraculous every little thing was.Now that she wasn’t on her trek anymore, not singularly focused on getting to her destination, now that she had arrived, it was time to remember what it felt like to be herself, to be a part of the world again, not separate from it. To be home.Lexa leaned back a little and sighed, “Is there time for me to take a nap? Before we eat?”Clarke smiled at her softly, “We eat whenever we want. Whenever we’re hungry.”Lexa nodded a little and Clarke took her hand again. Led her to a homey looking wooden house in the village.Lexa tried not to look at everything. Tried not to be overwhelmed by how cozy the wooden house was. The little touches of life everywhere. The softness of the sheets and blankets Clarke tucked around her.Lexa had cried out all of her tears already.She was done crying today.Part of her wanted so desperately to ask Clarke to stay and nap beside her. But she had to rest … her muscles were already starting to cramp … and there was no way she would able to sleep, or do anything but stare at Clarke if she stayed. Even though she never wanted Clarke to be out of her sight ever again. Not when Clarke being away from her the last time had resulted in years apart.But she didn’t ask Clarke to stay.And she could tell Clarke didn’t want to go either. Could see it in the way Clarke kept bringing her more pillows. More blankets. Tucked her in like four times. Just sat on the bed beside her with her hand on the curve of Lexa’s shoulder for a long minute. Looking away. The way Clarke stood in the doorway, just watching her. Lexa was facing the other way, but she could feel Clarke standing there. And it was a long moment before the floorboards finally creaked as Clarke stepped away.Lexa let her eyelids slide shut and just focused on the feeling of the warm blankets. The soft sheets. The soft bed under her weary muscles. The scent of Clarke on the pillow. And let her mind start to drift … started to dream. —— When Lexa woke up, it was dark.But there was a little candle burning in the room, watching over her. A warm little light on the desk.Lexa let out a deep sigh and pushed off the covers. She felt so much better now.Her body was practically purring with pleasure from a good sleep in such a comfortable bed after so many nights of sleeping on the ground. The aches all over her body from her long trek had lessened considerably. Her muscles felt looser, more relaxed.She pushed off the covers the rest of the way, slipped on the clothes she had taken off before crawling into bed. Put on the soft shirt, the sweater, the black leather pants Clarke had brought her after her dip in the lake.She picked up the candle and walked through the dark little house, out onto the porch, and saw Clarke sitting on the ground in front of a campfire, a blanket over her shoulders, Madi’s head in her lap.‘She’s a mother now,’ Lexa thought, her eyes filling with tears.She sighed to herself and ran a hand through her now mostly dry hair.Would she even be able to go a single minute without crying?Lexa took a second to collect herself, wiped away the wetness from her eyes, blew out the candle and set it down on the porch, then stepped down the steps.Madi sat up at the sound and gave her a big smile, “Hungry?”“So hungry …,” Lexa smiled back.In all her excitement at seeing Clarke, she had totally forgotten about how hungry she was. They had given her water, which she had drunk all of.But seeing Clarke again … all she had been able to think about was how much she had needed to clean up …Food had suddenly become less of a priority than looking presentable …Even if they were the last two people on earth, Lexa’s pride would not allow her to look a mess in front of Clarke.Madi got up and removed a big black kettle that was hanging from a little tripod over the fire.Clarke held out her arm, still holding the edge of her blanket like an outstretched wing, and Lexa sat down beside her, leaned against her a little and Clarke pressed a soft kiss against her cheek.A bowl appeared from somewhere in the darkness that Madi filled with soup from the kettle and handed over to Lexa.Lexa nodded in appreciation and took it gratefully with both hands.It smelled fucking amazing.Fish soup.Oh god, fish.It smelled of herbs too. The bowl was so warm in her hands. The warm golden light of the fire so welcome and familiar. She hadn’t sat by a real campfire like this in years, and seeing it now felt like seeing an old friend.Lexa set down the bowl and pulled off her sweater, down to just the short sleeve shirt so she wouldn’t get too warm from the fire, from the blanket, from Clarke’s warmth beside her.She picked up the bowl again, closed her eyes and smelled, let the mouthwatering scent of fish soup fill her soul. Her entire being.She took a sip from the bowl and groaned, low and deep.Oh god ... so good …The feeling of warm soup sliding down her throat so welcome.Eating was a pleasure, she remembered, not a chore.Eating the food in the bunker was like a twice a day test of one’s will to live. Of how much disappointment a person could stand.Lexa’s tastebuds buzzed to life at the flavors. At the subtlety of the herbs. At the warm bites of soft buttery fish. The broth so soothing on her throat.Her people would weep, WEEP when they tasted this soup.“So good … Mochof …,” Lexa said between sips, trying to remember her manners and not down the entire bowl all in one go.Madi handed her some sort of bread that Lexa happily accepted, dipped it into her soup and sighed as she felt the soft texture against her tongue, her jaw reveling in the pleasure of chewing the sponginess of it. It was different than any bread she’d ever had before, but so satisfying nonetheless.When she finished the bowl of soup Madi filled it again, handed her more bread.Lexa noticed that no one else was eating though.When she asked about it, Clarke simply said, “We got hungry.”Lexa nodded. She would not have wanted them to wait on her.And they seemed perfectly entertained with just watching her enjoy the food.She was so busy enjoying it that she hadn’t noticed that Madi was still futzing around with the fire.The scent of cooked fish hit Lexa’s nose and Lexa let out a moan at just the smell of it.When she’d finished the soup, Madi put a piece of fish in her bowl and Lexa closed her eyes and said a silent thank you to the fish for its sacrifice before taking a bite.It was so buttery, so flakey in her mouth, practically melted on her tongue. And it was salty, wonderfully salty, with little flecks of crushed herbs to brighten the flavour.Lexa looked at Madi after just one bite and said, “This is the best fish I have ever tasted.”Madi grinned and puffed up a little, “Clarke caught. I cooked.”Lexa looked at Clarke, took another bite. She was certain that Clarke did not possess the skill to fish the last time they had been together.She looked back at Madi and said in Trig, “Thank you for teaching her …,” and then she thought of seeing Clarke that first time in the little clearing, picking berries, so relaxed, and added in Trig, “I have never seen her so at peace. I am in your debt.”Madi’s grin arched higher into her cheek, and then she sort of wiggled a little in her seat at the compliment and looked away.Humble. Like Aden … Lexa thought to herself.“I hope she wasn’t too much of a handful …” Lexa added in Trig.Madi barked out a laugh, and Clarke slapped Lexa’s knee and said, “Hey!”Lexa grinned at Madi, “And you taught her more Trig. That is a pity …”Madi chuckled. Then she gave Lexa a long look, “You’re different than Clarke said.”Lexa nodded.It was true.She knew that.Bunker life had softened her in so many ways. She had needed to be kind to her people in their time of hardship.But she wasn’t in the bunker anymore, and she was still being soft. Joking with Madi, a stranger, handing out compliments so easily.But her worldview had shifted.Any person she saw was family now. Part of the very small family of humanity left. And Madi was most definitely a member of that family.And Madi was Clarke’s child.And Madi was a nightblood.One of her nightbloods …Madi’s nightblood siblings were in the bunker. A few of them pretty close to her age too.Madi looked at her, her eyes sparkling in the firelight, “Are there kids in the bunker?”Lexa smiled as she finished her bite, “Yes.”Madi’s answering smile was incandescent.“I believe you may be the cutest one though …” Lexa grinned at her.Madi wiggled a little in her seat again at the compliment and Lexa couldn’t help but chuckle at her.This child was so adorable.
So full of life. So full of the wildness that came from living in nature.Her spirit so light and free. Unburdened by sacrifice and years surrounded by concrete walls.She was what future generations of their people would be like in the valley … when the bunker was a long forgotten memory …Ugh.Do not start crying again Lexa.“How many people are in the bunker?” Madi asked.“1,200 … including me,” Lexa answered instantly.Every life, everyone who had come to the bunker was still there.“What’s it-” Madi started.“No more bunker talk today …,” Clarke interrupted, and then looked at Lexa, “Or tomorrow … Or … for a while …”Madi kicked at the dirt in front of her feet a little.“But eventually … we will talk about it ..,” Lexa offered.Madi nodded.Lexa looked at Clarke, “I have a letter for you, from your mother …”Clarke nodded but didn’t say anything.“Everything’s ok though?” Clarke asked, looking into the fire.“Yes,” Lexa answered instantly, both because it was true, and because, like Clarke, she did not want to think about the bunker and those responsibilities either.Not yet.When she had finished eating, Madi offered to braid her hair and Lexa nodded her acceptance.She sat by the fire so Madi could see what she was doing, and Madi’s little hands went to work, expertly weaving the braids.Lexa closed her eyes at the soft comfort of it, of such intimate human contact, at the feeling of little hands, the small fingers of this miracle child … the twelve-hundred and first of her people who had survived.When Lexa opened her eyes, Clarke was looking back at her so tenderly in the firelight that Lexa had to close her eyes again … otherwise her heart would surely explode.She focused instead on the feeling of Madi’s weaving fingers, the gentle tugs. So familiar …Madi was weaving her braids into the Heda style.Lexa smiled. Her eyes still closed. Warmth flooding through her chest.Clarke must have shown the style to Madi, or drawn Lexa’s braids and showed her.But was Lexa still Heda?She had handed the flame over to Aden. Temporarily, she’d said. To ease Aden’s jitters over stepping into the role, and so the handover wouldn’t be seen as such a monumentally big deal, requiring endless clan meetings and discussions of new protocols and raise the issue of bunker governance generally … which could spiral out into months of meetings and debates … lifetimes of meetings and debates honestly …After one last little tug, Madi put her hands on Lexa’s shoulders and smiled out, “All done Heda.”Lexa thanked her, didn’t correct her.Madi’s hands trailed across Lexa’s rolling shoulders, down Lexa’s muscly arms and she whispered out, “Whoa …”Lexa chuckled.“Clarke didn’t draw you right …” Madi said quietly.Lexa leaned back a little to face her and smiled, “I’ve been digging.”Madi’s arms wrapped around her and Lexa leaned back against her, rested the back of her head on Madi’s shoulder.“Digging yourself?” Clarke’s asked.“Yes …,” Lexa answered, looking up at the sky full of stars twinkling above them.“Others wanted to help … but … it was safest for me to do it …” Lexa added, not mentioning that it was safer for her because she was a nightblood, and therefore immune to any potential radiation contact, since Clarke seemed so sensitive about the topic of nightblood in regards to Madi. And also not specifying who exactly it had been safest for. That the natblidas could’ve helped, but Lexa was too worried about them getting hurt in a tunnel collapse. People in suits could’ve helped too, but Lexa did not want to risk a tear in the plastic killing even a single one of her precious people. Lexa, on the other hand, had several competent successors trained to replace her. It was a big job, but Lexa had had so much time to dig them out, years more than she needed. And there’d been no real rush … it would be years till her people would be able to go up to the ground anyway … Nothing was waiting for them on the surface … or so she’d thought …Lexa sighed up at the stars, still leaned back against Madi, “I didn’t think there would be anything left out here for our people … But I knew they would be able to see this …” Lexa said, gesturing up to the night sky full of twinkling stars above them.Madi looked up at the stars too and said quietly, “Our people.”Lexa nodded a little, and then looked across the fire at Clarke, “And I needed to see the stars too ...”Clarke’s eyes filled with tears as she looked back at Lexa in the firelight.They both knew what the rest of sentence should be …
… because I thought Clarke was up there. Because Clarke swore to me she would stay safe and go to space with her friends. Because I begged her to keep herself safe and she promised she would … But she didn’t. She lied to me.
Lexa could see the tears starting to slip down Clarke’s cheeks.Lexa had thought that Clarke had gone to space. Had thought she would never see Clarke again in this life. Had done the painful work of grieving that loss and sealing that part of her heart for all eternity.But Clarke had been on the ground the whole time. Suffering from that separation too. At least she had known that Lexa was there though. In the bunker. Knew she would see her again in 5 years.Clarke’s face was an absolute mess of emotions as she looked back at her in the firelight.Of course Clarke had not done so on purpose … Would never have put Lexa through all that heartache on purpose …“I’m sorry …” Clarke said, her voice rough with emotion.Lexa shook her head, looking back at her, “Never apologize to me for this.”She got up and sat next to Clarke, pulled her into her arms and held her close.“For Madi … for this place … for you …” Lexa said quietly, and then pressed a soft kiss on top of Clarke’s head, “Never apologize.” —— Lexa went to bed alone that night in Clarke’s bed.She wanted Clarke there, desperately.But she still needed to let her body recover from the long trek.Needed to let her brain recover from all this new information. Madi. The valley. What this place meant for their people. All the sights and smells and sounds and textures of her world returned to her … Nature itself returned to her after she had thought it lost forever.And her heart … oh her heart … It needed to recover too.Lexa’s heart had never felt so full.Just seeing Clarke, for one second, after everything, alive and well and picking berries in the sunshine would have been overwhelming.But everything all together?It was so much for her poor heart to take.Clarke gave her the longest hug in the doorway before she let Lexa go to sleep. Holding her. Sighing against her neck.She did not need to say a single word for Lexa to understand.Even just being out of each other’s line sight was painful after so long apart.Even knowing that Clarke was in the same house but not there beside her would be so bittersweet.But Lexa’s exhausted heart would not be able to take the sight of Clarke sleeping beside her.The feeling of Clarke sleeping beside her.It would be too much.Far too much.Lexa pressed a soft kiss to Clarke’s cheek and whispered, “Thank you.”“You came …,” Clarke mumbled against her neck and squeezed her tighter, just as she had when she had first seen Lexa in the little clearing.Lexa nodded.She would always go to Clarke. Would always find her.How could she ever take the risk of being away from her ever again? Of even walking back through the desert to tell her people of the valley? When random circumstances, a twisted ankle, the tunnel collapsing, could conspire to separate them from each other yet again, as random circumstances had done so many times before. So cruelly.Lexa no longer had the flame in her head shouting at her that whatever her people required of her was infinitely more important than the feeling of Clarke in her arms.All she could hear now was her own voice in her head telling her that they needed to stay together. Could not be apart.Even though Clarke and Madi were clearly so much better off in the valley …Lexa would have to think about how that would work later.“I must sleep,” Lexa said quietly.Clarke nodded a little against her neck, “Next door. Anything you need. I’m right here.”And then Clarke reluctantly let her go, trailing her fingers across Lexa’s sides as she stepped back, as if to prolong physical contact for just a second longer.Then she turned and left.Lexa pulled off her clothes, blew out the candle on the desk, got into bed and counted her breaths until she sank into a deep sleep, full of dreams.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

When Clarke got up the next morning and opened the door to her bedroom, Lexa wasn’t there.And she couldn’t help but panic a little at the sight of the empty sheets.
Where was Lexa?
She tried to stay calm and not run out of the house.Their house.Her and Lexa’s house.The house she had claimed for the two of them and Madi.When everyone came to the valley, things would be cramped for a while. There was a village there, but it wasn’t anywhere near big enough for 1,200 people. The houses would have to be shared, until they figured out the best way to build more without disrupting the forest too much. The best places to put the new houses would have to be planned out.But this house would be theirs.Clarke had plans.Notebooks on top of notebooks filled with plans.Catalogues of the plants in the valley. Drawings of them. Notes containing everything she or Madi knew about what each one could be used for.Notebooks filled with ideas about the placement of new houses. Thoughts on how they might be built in a way that didn’t disrupt the valley’s ecosystem too much. Some homes built directly into the dirt maybe. There were caves that could house people too.Notebooks about expanding Louwoda Kliron Kru’s garden. Their field of crops.Notebooks cataloguing every stitch of clothing, every manmade object in each house. Every resource.A map of the valley she had made.Maps of the new terrain surrounding it in every direction. Notes about how far they were from the sea … a major source of salt that would be important for their people’s diet, for their survival.Notes about all the guns she had collected from the burned out ship in Arkadia. All the bullets. Every weapon. So Lexa could decide whether their people should be allowed to have them, or whether, in this new paradise, this new Eden, no one but them should know about them. Maybe the guns should be buried in some unmarked spot known only to them, only used in case of emergency.She’d made those notebooks diligently all throughout her first year in the valley, with Madi’s help.Madi was so excited about the idea of more people coming to their village. Sharing her home with them. Having other kids to play with.Clarke made notebook after notebook, but as the months wore on into the second year, as the peace and tranquillity of living in the valley with no responsibilities at all to her people sank deeper into her bones … a part of her just dreaded the idea of the people from the bunker coming there …The politics that would start. The potential for violence. Crime. Rudeness even. People being messy and inconsiderate of their neighbors. People being too selfish. Too shortsighted. Overexploiting the valley.This place was heaven, free of all of that, with just her and Madi.All she needed was Lexa and it would be a perfect paradise.And now Lexa was there.Her perfect paradise was complete.Keeping the valley for just the 3 of them was an incredibly selfish fantasy.
So incredibly selfish.
Clarke knew that.And she knew that Lexa would never abandon her people like that.Madi would hate it too.But … Clarke couldn’t help but think about it.She’d never gotten to be completely selfish before …The most selfish thing she’d ever done was leave her people to manage themselves while she’d left to go endure hunger and cold on her own in the woods … After she’d killed her people’s torturers and murderers … and the innocents caught in the crossfire in Mount Weather … which had left her so broken that she couldn’t even bear to look at the faces of the people she’d saved.And there was a reason she’d never gotten to be selfish before … And that reason was because she had grown up on the Ark … in a confined area with too many people and limited resources … like the valley would become. Full of politics and drama and strict controls to maintain order, under authoritarian control.Ironic that the person she loved most in the world was an authoritarian leader. Well, one of the two people she loved most in the world …And she didn’t want the life of politics and bullshit that other people would bring for them either.Yes.There were people in the bunker she cared about.Yes.It would be horrific of her to try and keep the valley for just the three of them.Unforgivable.Utterly unforgivable.But still …Peace.Madi growing up in perfect safety.Lexa living her perfect life with her.A life free of worry and responsibility.The kind of life Lexa had never even been given the option to have.Lexa had been forced to serve her people practically since birth. Had been taken from her parents so young she didn’t even know their names … couldn’t even remember their faces … Had been forced to spend her childhood training to kill her only friends, her siblings essentially. Had had an AI put into her 12 year old brain so that she could then go on to bear the burden of leading thousands. People who would demand everything she had to give them … Her entire life spent thinking of them, working for them, bleeding for them. Killing for them. For their happiness. For their peace and prosperity. Even as they worked against her.Risking her life for them again and again …Waiting for the day that one of her own people murdered her … as they had every commander before her … As they’d tried to do so many times …The most sensitive, selfless, noble, well-intentioned person Clarke had ever known ...That was how Lexa’s people had treated her.What they had done to her.Brainwashed her. Brutalized her. Used her since birth.During Clarke’s time in the valley, living in perfect peace and safety for the first time in her life, Clarke had had a lot of time to reflect on just how deeply fucked up so much of their lives had been … How deeply flawed humanity was.She had witnessed it countless times.On the Ark.With the 100.At Mount Weather.With Pike in Arkadia.As Skykru’s ambassador in Polis.Every society she had ever been a part of, every society she had ever seen had been filled with so much violence. So much selfishness and shortsightedness, so much unnecessary conflict.Humans had been given the incredible gift of brilliance, of creativity and strength, of dominion over the earth.And what had humanity done with those gifts?Schemed and plotted against each other.Committed crimes against each other.Went to war against each other.Built weapons capable of destroying all life.Had turned the entire planet into a nuclear wasteland.Twice.Destroyed nearly all of its beautiful innocent creatures.The wildlife, the plants, the trees, the grasses too.And sure, it wasn’t the people in the bunker who had built the nuclear reactors that had destroyed everything when they’d melted down.It wasn’t them who had launched the nuclear weapons that had destroyed the planet a hundred years ago either.That was ALIE.But mankind as a species wasn’t blameless.They’d built those reactors.Those weapons.And why had ALIE had come to the conclusion that the best way to make life better for mankind was to decimate their numbers?Because back then, humans had fucked up their paradise of a planet so badly that it was almost certainly true.That’s what Raven had learned from the records at Becca’s lab …That ALIE’s actions were a reaction to the fact that humans had dumped so much CO2 into the atmosphere that they were on the brink of making the entire planet uninhabitable … raising global temperatures, melting ice caps, destabilizing ecosystems, killing off a vast array of species. Triggering wars over water shortages as dust storms had ravaged the planet.That was the planet that Clarke had learned about in her history classes on the Ark growing up too …They’d learned that their ancestors hadn’t needed to do all that damage to the environment to survive … That they’d had the technologies to live sustainably. To reduce carbon emissions to zero. The Ark itself ran on those technologies … Solar. Recycling. Sustainable resource management systems.Their ancestors had simply chosen not to use those technologies.Had burned up every fossil fuel on the planet instead … and then built nuclear power plants … Let those industries have too much sway over their leaders. Refused to invest in clean technologies, or even change their own habits to live more sustainably as individuals. Even though those changes would’ve paid for themselves in time, a million times over.They were so much better than their ancestors … Understood sacrifice and sustainability and living for the greater good … Or so they’d been told growing up …Surely her own people would never make those mistakes again.And then the Ark had come to the ground.Then Clarke had seen the way Skykru had immediately started chopping down trees. Overhunting. Taking so much more than they needed. Forgetting all about the careful rationing and resource management they’d done in space. Disrupting the ecosystem without a second thought. Making the animals scarce around their crashed ship within months. Electing Pike as their leader and jumping straight into conflicts with their Grounder neighbors to take their land …Because telling people ‘No’ and ‘We need to carefully consider …’ didn’t win elections. Reckless optimism did.It was as if no one on the Ark had taken the same history classes she had. But they had of course. They all had. Every one of them.And how had the Grounders, those blessed with nature’s infinite bounty after the earth had healed itself, been faring on the ground?At war with each other.Over resources.Decades of wars between the clans … one generation after the next …Even with plenty of resources on the ground for all.Clarke had seen it herself as her clan’s ambassador.Lexa’s attempts to create stability and peace met with grumbling and greed. Power struggles and provocations by the clans to lure one another into conflicts so that they could take whatever the others had.That was nothing new for humanity.All the wars.Overexploitation of the environment.Every century of human history was the same cautionary tale.The takeaway message crystal clear.Clarke could hardly believe that people were capable of those things she’d learned about in her history classes growing up.But she’d seen it all for herself, with her own eyes, in the less than 12 months total she’d spent on the ground before praimfaya.And now nearly everything had been destroyed by humanity.All except for this one, perfect valley …All that was left of the destruction humans had wrought …All that was left after their wars against nature, against each other, against life itself.Were they really going to just hand what little that was left of nature right back to humanity?What were the odds that those 1,199 people in the bunker wouldn’t destroy it?Those people who had been socialized to live in a world of human violence, of human brutality. Of human greed.What were the odds they wouldn’t overexploit the valley with their selfishness.Kill each other over the scraps that were left until there was truly nothing left at all.Until nature itself was destroyed and the earth was completely barren of any life.Humans, with all their intelligence and ingenuity, couldn’t even keep their own selfishness in check …They were dark thoughts.But they were the kind of thoughts you had after watching the planet get destroyed in a nuclear holocaust.The kind of thoughts you had after driving through miles and miles of empty wasteland … witnessing with your own eyes the loss of nearly every single plant and animal on the planet.So much beauty.Gone.The kind of thoughts you had when your fellow humans had so traumatized you with those same qualities they’d used to destroy the world around them.The kind of thoughts you had when you’d been imprisoned as a child …When you’d spent a year in solitary after watching your father’s execution …The kind of thoughts you had when your own people had sent you and 99 other children down to Earth to see if you would die from radiation poisoning. As test subjects.The kind of thoughts you had when you and the rest of those children had then been kidnapped by people who wanted to steal your bone marrow … who kept people in cages and bled them to death … so that they could go for a stroll outside when they felt like it.The kind of thoughts you had when you’d seen the woman you love get attacked for calling for peace … for restraint … for an end to the cycle of violence …When you’d seen her get shot by her closest advisor …When you’d seen her blood pouring out between your desperate fingers …The kind of thoughts you had when you’d had years of quiet to think about all of that.All that pain, all that violence, all that destruction … For what?It hadn’t had to be that way.If people were different … better … it could have all been so different …They could have spared each other all of that suffering.But no.Humans couldn’t even be trusted to spare each other from their destructive impulses … Not even children.Who did she owe more to?Humanity?Or life itself.Nature.All the plants and animals who had suffered through so much destruction and disruption at the hands of humans … Who had endured two nuclear disasters that they had no part in at all.For which they were entirely blameless.This place, this last place on earth that had been spared their destruction was holy.Sacred.If it should belong to anyone at all, it should belong to Nature.Nature.Who had given humans so much, and been completely betrayed by them in return.They were unworthy of dominion over this place.They deserved the bunker.To survive without the bounty of nature that humans had disrespected and destroyed time and time again.Lives without Nature’s beauty.There was poetic justice in that.Clarke wasn’t sure what to do with those thoughts.But at some point, Lexa would want to talk about handing over the valley to the people in the bunker.And Clarke was pretty sure that all those thoughts would come tumbling out.The big question:Was humanity worthy of this place?  Could they be trusted to take care of it?Trusted to care for what little was left of life on their planet?Had Lexa seen enough of what humans had done on her trek there to understand?She didn’t know.But god … she was so relieved to see the Lexa who had returned to her.So relieved to see Lexa alive.To know that she had not been murdered by her own people in that bunker … as they had tried to do so many times over the course of Lexa’s life. As they had tried to do several times in just the time that Clarke had known her …Even with only 1,200 people left on the entire planet, Clarke didn’t trust humans to not come up with reasons to kill each other.And the Lexa who had returned to her … She was so relieved to see that they had not ruined her.That they hadn’t broken her in the way that so many on the Ark had been broken.Lexa had returned to her with her humanity intact.With all her fingers and toes.Had come to the valley, met a strange child, and treated her with so much respect. With so much love and kindness that it had made Clarke’s heart ache to watch.In two years, they had not stolen Lexa’s soul.What would they take from Lexa if she stayed in that bunker all five years … when things would get so much harder …How much more would Lexa’s people steal from her by then.Probably her life.Clarke had worried about it so often … that the people in the bunker would kill Lexa.Because if being a leader had taught her anything, it was that people both desperately wanted and needed leaders, and that they also needed someone to blame for not manifesting a perfect reality that benefited them personally. Someone to punish for not conjuring up magical third options that didn’t exist, where everyone got exactly what they felt entitled to, regardless of practicalities.For all that Lexa had sacrificed and endured for her people, for all her efforts to create peace, for all the goodness and the grace that she had somehow managed to preserve in herself and not have beaten out of her by her people, for all the losses she had mourned and worked so hard to prevent, for all those she had tried to protect from what she herself had endured, she was worthy of dwelling in this place.Not dominion.No human was worthy of that anymore.Just … to be there.Under Nature’s dominion.This was a place where Lexa’s goodness could flourish.The goodness bestowed on her by Nature that humanity had tried to rob her of since she was a child.This was a place where Madi deserved to just be too.And Clarke … well, Clarke was pretty sure she wasn’t worthy. But it was difficult to be objective about yourself. Her life had been so ruled by circumstances she’d had no control over, traumas that had been foisted upon her one after another … But maybe that was everyone’s excuse. Maybe that was all of humanity’s excuse for their crimes against each other, against Nature. That they fucked each other up so bad that they couldn’t help but fuck everything else up too.But she felt so profoundly honored to merely exist in the valley.To have even seen it.She knew for certain she wasn’t worthy of dominion.Again, no human was worthy of that ...But she would do her best to protect this place.In two years, the valley had already been kinder to her, more generous to her than any human had ever been …Had shown her the kind of peace that existed without humans …Had shown her that the world was naturally peaceful.Quiet.Beautiful.Safe.The world didn’t need people.The world was a paradise without them.And that paradise, that peace, was worth protecting.It was worth everything.Clarke stepped out onto the porch and looked out at the quiet little village.It was late.Probably after 10.She had overslept.Had stayed up so late the night before.But just knowing that Lexa was in the next room … so close …Clarke hadn’t been able to help herself.She had crept into Lexa’s room in the middle of the night, in the darkness.Let her eyes adjust.Just sat there.Watching her sleep.Lexa safe.Lexa here.Home.In her bed.She could stare at that sight for hours.Lifetimes.Sometimes she’d reached out a hand and let it hover over Lexa.She would not touch her.Would not wake her from the sleep she so desperately needed after her long journey.And just feeling Lexa’s warmth radiating off of her, against her hand as it hovered just an inch away, was such a comfort.Lexa was really there.It wasn’t the dream Clarke must have had hundreds of times by then.She was there, safe and warm, her face so relaxed, so worry free.Lexa had been feeling so many things since she’d come.Clarke had been shocked to see Lexa’s emotions play out so transparently on her face.Lexa did not hide them as much as she used to. As much as she used to keep them so measured, even with Clarke, no matter what was happening.But Lexa practically radiated joy in this place.Showed her kindness plainly, in her expressions, in her thoughtfulness, in her little gestures.Nearly every word out of Lexa’s mouth since she’d arrived had been so romantic … in the sense that it was filled with love. Wonder. Appreciation.Watching Lexa take in this place, watching all of her feelings play out across her face had been such a gift in itself.But it was also so much for Lexa to take in.Clarke could see that too.Her love Lexa … for all her badassery, she was so deeply sensitive underneath it all.Just like Clarke.She had tried to not overwhelm Lexa.She did.But she had failed.She knew that.Had failed when she couldn’t stop touching her.Had failed when she had seen Lexa in the lake and had taken off most of her clothes in front of her to join her.Had failed when she had offered to help Lexa with her tangles and her hands had wandered across Lexa’s body instead.She was a goner the second she’d seen Lexa in that little clearing.Had fallen in love with her all over again.Instantly.For coming there.For tunneling out early.For finding her message.For trekking so many miles through god only knew what to find her.For just being that kind of person.And then she’d seen this new, softer version of Lexa and had fallen in love with her too.But she had let her take a nap in peace. Had let her sleep through the night without touching her. Without crawling into bed with her.Clarke’s whole body, her hands and mouth had been so profoundly restrained compared to what she’d wanted to do to Lexa. With Lexa. For Lexa.But she would treat Lexa with as much care and consideration as she could possibly muster, even with the deafening pounding of her heart filling her ears, even with her hormones rioting, as Lexa recovered from her journey and adjusted to life outside the bunker.Neither Lexa nor Madi were in the little village when Clarke looked around for them.So she took a seat on the front steps of their house to await their return.Maybe Lexa had wondered off for some alone time.Maybe Madi was out checking the traps.She had talked to Madi about being careful with Lexa the night before, when they’d been getting everything ready for dinner while Lexa had been napping.She had told Madi that Lexa had been through a lot, so much … Was going through a lot just by being there … back on the surface after her years underground. That they needed to be careful and give Lexa time and space to adjust.Madi had nodded and given her a sympathetic look.Madi remembered when Clarke had shown up in the village.How she had been more than a little broken. Cried sometimes for seemingly no reason. Needed sleep at random times. Sometimes all day. Needed quiet and time to just stare off into space sometimes.Madi had understood then too.Had treated Clarke like the scared and lost forest creature she was.Madi knew how animals worked.Knew not to spook them.Knew they had feelings that didn’t always make sense.And she had treated Clarke accordingly.Always gave her an out. Didn’t crowd her. Approached her by degrees. Only touched her a little, a gentle brush of a hand when they walked side by side, but didn’t take her hand. Let Clarke take her hand when she was ready.There was so much wisdom in that girl. So much kindness and thoughtfulness and quiet grace.Clarke trusted her with Lexa completely.Trusted her with her heart.But apparently, Lexa didn’t need to be treated with quite so much gentleness.Clarke turned her head at the sound of dirt crunching and saw Lexa walking up the path to the village with Madi on her back. Madi’s arms were wrapped around Lexa’s neck, her legs wrapped around Lexa’s waist.The two of them were laughing.And Clarke’s heart soared at the sight.Lexa understood.From the moment she’d arrived.Madi was Clarke’s daughter.Was a lot like Clarke in many ways.But the number of ways she was like Lexa was just fucking staggering.And seeing them together like that, laughing together … so soon after meeting … She knew that Lexa had seen it too …Madi was hers too.Theirs.Lexa made her way over to where Clarke was sitting on the steps, grinning. Set Madi down on her feet. And Madi produced a bag of berries, held it out to Clarke.“I interrupted you yesterday …,” Lexa said quietly, “When you were picking them. Madi says this is how many you eat.”Clarke sighed, smiling up at Lexa. Her heart thudding away in her chest.How was she so lucky?That this thoughtful, majestic, and so considerate creature was there with her.This creature who would only take as many berries as Clarke would eat and no more.Lexa deserved to be in the valley.Understood how precious it was …“Please … sit …,” Clarke smiled up at her, patting the wood step beside her and then opened up the little bag of berries to share.Lexa took a seat beside her.“I’m gonna go check the traps …,” Madi grinned at them and then scampered off.Ugh.Madi was so considerate too.Clarke looked into the little bag and found the sweetest berry, handed it over to Lexa.But Lexa put her hand under Clarke’s, didn’t take it.That’s when Clarke noticed that her hand was shaking a little with emotion as she held out the berry to her.“Is it ok?” Lexa asked quietly, her hand still hovering under Clarke’s, “She … wanted to play … and … I also wanted to play … And … you were asleep …”Clarke sighed again, smiling at her.
This woman.
She held up the berry and popped it into Lexa’s mouth.Lexa grinned as she chewed.“You can do anything you like here …” Clarke answered.She hadn’t really meant for it to sound suggestive, but it most certainly did, and Lexa raised an eyebrow playfully.Ugh.She was so fucked.Clarke popped a berry into her own mouth before she said something even worse.How was she gonna keep her hands off her? This woman who was no doubt still recovering from her long trek. From seeing all the devastation. From whatever she’d been through in the bunker. Who was no doubt still adjusting to this new, wildly different reality …It hadn’t even been 24 hours yet.What was the protocol for ‘I was desperately in love with you before and I’ve been pining over you so hard for two years and you’re even more appealing than I remember somehow, and every word out of your mouth, every breath you take sounds like a flirtation to me, and I know we’ve both been through something so life-altering, and I hope to god that you’re okay, and I really want to be respectful of your recovery from all that, but I also so desperately want to get into your pants that I’m kinda dying over here. Please excuse me …’-type situations.“I think I got the sweetest one …,” Lexa winked at her.Ugh.She was so completely fucked.Double entendres … so fucked …Lexa had noticed that Clarke had given her the sweetest berry.She was saying Clarke was the sweetest one.The berry was literally the sweetest one.Clarke popped another berry into Lexa’s mouth.She could keep her mouth full. That might help.But maybe not really?Because there was a little breeze and Lexa smelled really fucking amazing in yesterday’s clothes. They smelled like Lexa now, that soft musky scent that sent a sharp pang of arousal straight through Clarke’s core.Lexa leaned back a little, put her hands on the wood planks of the porch behind her and closed her eyes, the warm sun on her face, illuminating all of her features … the sunshine bringing out the little flecks of gold in the chestnut waves of her braided hair, her muscly arms bulging under her short sleeves from the weight of holding up her torso. And Lexa was not wearing chest bindings today, and her chest looked so fucking good under that shirt … All soft curves and rolling muscles and … Were her nipples hard?Clarke’s brain started to short circuit at the memory of licking her way across Lexa’s chest, trailing her tongue across those nipples that first time they’d gone to bed together … the feeling of Lexa’s hard nipples in her mouth as she’d sucked them, the little sounds Lexa had made when she’d done that, so primal, like an animal …Clarke had no idea how long she’d been staring at that point.Honestly, she’d kinda zoned out.Apparently, at some point, she’d shifted the way she was sitting so that she was facing Lexa now … and a lot more of the berries were gone … Apparently she’d just turned to stare at Lexa as she ate.Also, she was soaked. Like, completely soaked.Maybe they should go for a walk or something?Clarke put down the little bag and dusted off her hands, “Do you wanna-”“Yes.” Lexa grinned, not even opening her eyes.And I mean … what was Clarke supposed to do with that …She was so weak.And then Lexa peeked open an eye just the tiniest bit to look at her, to see what Clarke was gonna do, and then closed her eye and grinned even bigger.And that, right there, was the flirtiest, cockiest thing Clarke had ever seen.She could not be held responsible for her actions anymore.She grabbed Lexa’s shirt in her fist and pulled Lexa’s lips to hers, shoved her tongue in Lexa’s mouth.Lexa’s tongue was rolling against hers. She was angling deeper into the kiss. And something was rubbing between Clarke’s thighs.Wait, what was happening?Lexa was carrying her into the house now? Clarke’s legs were wrapped tight around her waist, Lexa’s muscly abs were rubbing between her thighs as she walked, Clarke’s hand was in Lexa’s hair as she kissed her so deeply and … time seemed to be malfunctioning? Because Lexa’s kisses were so hot and comforting and familiar that they transported her right back to the first time they’d slept together, but also Lexa’s kisses were so totally different, and like, aggressive, with zero hesitation … but were also like, so fucking tender that Clarke’s heart felt like it was exploding. And Lexa was making these little growling sounds into their kisses that were so fucking hot and the sound made Clarke’s thighs grind against Lexa all on their own.And also this walk to the bedroom was taking a while, but that was okay, ‘cause she was so fucking lost in this endless kiss … It took her a second to realize that she was actually sitting on the edge of the table now, and Lexa was basically asking her with the rolling of her tongue if she’d like to be fucked on that table, and Clarke’s mind was reeling at that thought. Because yes, she’d love to be fucked on that table, and on every other horizontal surface in the house, and against all the vertical ones too.But Lexa deserved comfort … for their first time anyway.“Mmfff … bed …,” Clarke mumbled, barely able to tear herself away from Lexa’s lips for even a second to say that.Lexa was lifting her again, carrying her again, toeing the bedroom door closed, laying her down on the bed.And the moment Lexa’s lips left hers, Clarke felt … afraid … for just a second, because this could be super fucking emotional, for both of them. All the love and worry and waiting and distance and missing and not knowing and fighting to be together against such steep odds for so long … Clarke could feel the dam holding all those swirling thoughts back in her mind creaking precariously … Could feel the sobs bubbling up in her chest …But the look Lexa gave her in that moment, as she looked down at her from beside the bed, the set of Lexa’s jaw, the black pools of Lexa’s eyes told her No. This wasn’t gonna be like that. This was going to be a primal, animal, no thinking all feeling fucking. All the feeling goes into the fucking.And honestly, the table really should have been a clue that that would be the case.Clarke nodded, and then Lexa was on top of her.And oh … the weight, the delicious crush of Lexa on top of her, pinning her against the bed.There had been no guarantee that Clarke would ever feel that feeling again in her life.She tried not to think about that though.She tried not to think at all.Focused instead on the feeling of Lexa’s molten kisses, the feeling of Lexa’s hand wrapping around the back of her thigh as she wrapped her legs around Lexa’s hips. The feeling on Lexa’s hips grinding in between her thighs. The rolling rhythm letting Clarke know that Lexa was going to claim her prize, the body, the soul of the person she had trekked through so many miles of desert to find.Clarke’s hand was in Lexa’s braids, gripping as Lexa kissed and licked and nibbled her way down the side of her neck. As Clarke panted, her heart hammering away in her chest, her hips bucking at the feeling of Lexa grinding in against her.And they still had all their clothes on somehow.But Lexa’s hand was sliding up under her shirt, feeling Clarke’s warm skin, sliding up over her soft breast and cupping it, massaging it, her thumb tracing over the stiff peak of Clarke’s hard nipple through her chest bindings.Lexa leaned back and whipped off her shirt and then got right back on top of her, kissing her again, putting her hand back on Clarke’s breast, grinding in between her thighs again, teeth grazing against the side of her neck as Clarke’s whole body wrapped around her, arms and legs saying ‘Come here, take what’s yours’.Clarke’s walls were already squeezing and fluttering greedily in anticipation, heavy panting breaths rolling through her chest.Lexa leaned back and Clarke whipped off her shirt, her chest bindings, shimmied out of her pants and underwear so fast it was a blur.Lexa was naked now too, her warmth pressed against Clarke’s chest, crushing her into the bed in the best way possible as they kissed, her hand on Clarke’s cheek, sliding down her neck, her chest, her thigh, gripping as she ground in.And oh … the warmth, the feeling of Lexa’s smooth skin, of her soft breasts and rolling muscles pressed against her. Clarke couldn’t help the tears slipping down the sides of her face onto the pillow.It was impossible that something could feel so good, so holy and sacred. The feeling of Lexa’s bare skin under her hands. The gratitude Clarke felt for every muscle her fingers touched, for every muscle in Lexa’s body that had given her the strength to come to her, to make the trek. To bring the person so precious to her all that way.Lexa started kissing her way down Clarke’s chest, licking, grazing her teeth against warm skin, her soft mouth sucking Clarke’s hard nipple, her warm hand massaging the softness of Clarke’s breast as her kisses slowly made their way further and further down. Clarke’s thighs fell open, her walls rolling and squeezing endlessly, her whole body shuddering with pleasure.The feeling would belong to Clarke forever. She would never forget it. Could never forget it. The feeling of being loved by Lexa … Nothing could take it away. No weapon could touch it. No sadness could reach it. She would be stronger for it. Whatever happened, the memory of that feeling would live in her bones. She would be able to remember it aways, feel it in exquisite detail. It would be a comfort to her forever.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Stay ………… stay …………,” Clarke mumbled, her voice still low and husky from the night before as she pressed soft kisses across Lexa’s chest in the early morning now light peeking in through the dusty windows.She mumbled it over and over again between kisses. Like a siren from Greek mythology, calling Odysseus to her island.But really, she’d been more like Penelope.Waiting in Ithaca for her Odysseus. Waiting for her wounded warrior to return home to her after so many trails, after so long lost at sea. Weaving the burial shroud for the lover she had feared might already be lost in the most anxious part of her heart, late at night, when things got too quiet. But never quite finishing it. Never allowing herself to fully accept the idea that Lexa may have already fallen under the strain of all she was likely enduring in that underground prison she’d been trapped in. But needing to prepare herself a little … just in case … Because if that had happened, Clarke wouldn’t survive the news if she didn’t prepare for it at all. And Madi needed her.So she had waited in her Ithaca. Waited. Weaving. Worrying. Tending to her little Telemachus as best she could. Their child. Taking all the comfort she could in all the parts of Madi that were so much like Lexa … the other mother Madi didn’t even know she had … The source of so many of the stories Clarke had told her, the source of so many of the lessons Clarke had taught her.Honestly, Madi had been such a gift from the universe in that respect.No amount of sunshine and berries and natural beauty could make up for the guilt she’d felt for not being by Lexa’s side to care for her and protect her and love her as she shouldered her burdens underground.But at least she could be good to Madi. To the other version of Lexa the universe had gifted her with.Clarke was still mumbling out “Stay ………… Stay …………” between kisses when she felt Lexa’s muscles shift under her lips. She looked up and met Lexa’s green eyes as they fluttered open.Lexa yawned, adorably, like a little kid.A kind of yawn Clarke had never seen from her before.Had she ever seen Lexa yawn before?And then Lexa reached out a hand, ran it through Clarke’s disheveled hair and smiled at her softly, “I am in no hurry to leave. All is well. My people can spare me.”Clarke bit the inside of her cheek instead of growling like she wanted to.Lexa’s people were not in that bunker. Lexa’s people were in the valley. Ready to love her to pieces and give her every single thing her heart desired.She was not some disposable object to be used or spared.She was essential.Necessary.And if Lexa’s “people” truly wanted to spare her, they wouldn’t have taken her for granted and brutalized her her entire life. Her beautiful body wouldn’t be littered with scars that no amount of Clarke’s soft kisses could ever erase.They would have treated her like a goddamn human being.Not a gear to be turned and turned, churning out brilliance for them to mangle with their petty agendas and vendettas, churning out one creative solution after another to satisfy their mercurial whims, churning out wars for her to fight for the conflicts they had started.Clarke had spent enough time in Polis to get the picture … Had read the fleimkepas’ records of Heda Lexa’s reign … Had learned the full disappointing picture of what Lexa’s people had put her through … How she had held out the prospect of peace to them over and over again, offering them treaties, alliances, compromises that would have saved so many lives, only to have them push her hand away and go to war with each other instead. How she’d had to bathe herself in blood to keep so many other hands clean. How she’d had to do the most horrific things in the name of justice, so that others would be too afraid of her to cause the suffering they wanted to inflict on their fellow human beings.Lexa never complained about it. But Clarke had done her own research in Polis. Had learned enough about Lexa’s life to be enraged on her behalf.That symbol pressed to Lexa’s forehead when she was in her Heda clothes, the symbol of the inherent nature of things, of natural law, of the passage of time, Lexa had once explained to her.But Clarke saw it for what it was. A gear. A gear for the brutal war machine Lexa’s “people” had forced her to be since she was a child.Clarke would never forgive them for that.She had been a gear for her people too.For nowhere near as long as Lexa had.And it had broken so much of her.Left her with so much damage …The teeth of her own gears stripped down to the barest nubs by the grinding, by the pressure.God … she must be hungry …Lexa had once told her ‘Grumbling bellies lead to grumbling minds …’That was so true.And she hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday. Not since she’d had those few berries before falling into bed with Lexa.She had survived off of kisses, off the taste of sweat, off the taste of Lexa alone.Filled her heart instead of her belly.All her other organs were irrelevant.But her stomach was grumbling just pitifully now.Lexa must be hungry too.Clarke smiled at her, “Let me make you something to eat.”She didn’t even acknowledge that Lexa had said she was staying.Because the truth was, Lexa was staying regardless.Ideally, Lexa would agree to stay.But she was staying even if it meant that Clarke had to tie Lexa to their bed while she was sleeping and feed her by hand for the rest of her life.Honestly, there was something pretty appealing about that idea …Lexa pulled Clarke up on top of her and then rolled them over. Nuzzled into Clarke’s neck. Sighed out a heavy sigh.Clarke squeezed her arms around her and stroked her back like it was a normal thing. But honestly, she was completely floored by it.Had been floored so many times by seeing this kind of thing from Lexa over the course of the day and night before.
When had Lexa become such a cuddler?
In the past, Clarke had always been the cuddly one.Lexa had always loved her of course. So fiercely. They’d been physical with each other loads of times, and it had always been filled with intimacy, with so much love and tenderness.But it had never been like this.This Lexa was not measured with her at all. Gave her so many nuzzles and cuddles that Clarke’s heart felt like it was full to bursting. Showed her emotions so plainly on her face, her love, her pleasure, her desire. It was so beautiful that Clarke’s eyes prickled with tears at the sight.Clarke told herself it was because Lexa was so happy to see her, after all the time and distance and hardships that had separated them.But …Seeing Lexa’s mannerisms change … and … the way she was in bed with her now … And not just the big things like cuddles … so many of the little things had changed too … It was … a bit … disorienting …She knew everything there was to know about Lexa.Knew all of Lexa’s mannerisms, every variation in Lexa’s tone and what it meant, could decode every single one of Lexa’s subtle expressions … But now … it was like … her encyclopedia of Lexa was … off … filled with typos … or like … she didn’t need to decode anything now … no translation knowledge necessary …It was like Lexa, her love, her soulmate, the person she knew so intimately, had returned to her after years apart, but … was like … speaking French now … Was … the same … just … in French …Or … it was more like … if Lexa had only spoken very rudimentary English before … but now … she was just like … casually dropping words like antidisestablishmentarianism and onomatopeia into the conversation.Clarke told herself again it was just the whole missing each other thing … That … maybe Lexa had just … picked up some new mannerisms in their time apart.But …It was like Lexa had fucked her in a different language too … and like … why did Lexa fuck in a different language now?Don’t get Clarke wrong, she loves this new language … She is living for it … Truly.But like … why … does … Lexa fuck in a different language now?Had Lexa been … learning … a different fuck language while she’d been in the bunker ……..?Was this like … someone else’s fuck language she was speaking?Clarke squeezed her arms around her.She wouldn’t begrudge Lexa that if she had …On the contrary.Lexa had thought she was gone forever … And she wanted Lexa to be happy … More than anything she wanted that … Was grateful to anyone and everyone who had given Lexa any amount of comfort in her years underground … in Lexa’s whole life really …But … Lexa seemed … really fluent in her new … language … and that was … huh … surprising?I guess?That … someone had … completely transformed Lexa’s … fuck language …A vein in Clarke’s temple started to throb …She could feel the beginnings of a headache starting to form behind her eyes.She really needed to eat something.And … to think about something else …Clarke kissed Lexa’s cheek and said in her gravely morning voice, “Come on. Let me feed you.”Lexa hummed and leaned back a little, gave her a soft kiss, and then a big grin. Her green eyes all sparkly in this new way that Clarke didn’t recognize … or had maybe … just like … forgotten about … somehow? Even though … it was … so totally beautiful … and like … magical … and … filled with love for her … She must have just … forgotten?Clarke felt tears slip down the side of her face at the sight. She sighed. Rubbed her forehead with her fingers a little.
Was she losing her mind?
This woman was Lexa.All of her goodness. All of her grace. All of her qualities. Just … turned up to 11. Or … like … 43.She smelled like Lexa. Tasted like Lexa. Felt like Lexa under her hands.Don’t question it.There isn’t a problem here.Everything is good.The best it’s ever been.It’s fine.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

A week of Lexa in the village had done wonders for Clarke’s mood.Madi could get away with so much more these days.Clarke was a good mom … Loved her so much. But she could be … kinda strict … Was very organized and structured … And she noticed everything.Clarke was also bordering on too smart. Ok, not even bordering on it.She was way too smart.She was the smartest person Madi had ever met.When she had come to the village, Clarke had asked her so many questions. And during her time there, Clarke had taught her so many new words, so many new ideas. Helped Madi turn those ideas around and around in her mind and look at them from all the different sides and angles.But with Lexa around, Clarke’s mind had turned to goo.Madi grinned as she watched Clarke fawn over Lexa.As she watched them sit on the porch together in the mornings as she mended her fishing spears, watched them drinking the tea Lexa had shown them how to make from boiling dandelion roots. Watched Clarke nuzzle into Lexa’s neck and whisper in Lexa’s ear and just stare at Lexa’s fingers while she played with them like a complete goon, grinning to herself the whole time.Clarke could not stop touching Lexa either. Madi had noticed that right away. She wasn’t sure Clarke even realized she was doing it.Sometimes, when the three of them were all sitting at the table together, Lexa reading one of Clarke’s notebooks, Clarke teaching Madi her lessons for the day, literally while Clarke was talking, her hand would start wandering across the table over to where Lexa was.Her hand kinda making this little grasping motion on the table until Lexa reached over and took it. Lexa not even looking up from her notebook as she took it. Like she just knew Clarke’s hand was there waiting for her.Madi had never seen anything so goofy in her life … the way Clarke’s hand always wandered over to Lexa.Madi had made a game of it. Whenever they sat down together, whenever Lexa walked over to join them at something, whenever she and Clarke walked over to join Lexa at something, Madi counted down the number of seconds it took until Clarke’s hand started to wander toward Lexa’s.Most of the time, it took less than 10 seconds.Madi had never heard Clarke laugh so much either.Lexa was always teasing her.Madi loved teasing Clarke too.They teased her together a bunch.Lexa had told Madi where Clarke was the most ticklish and then they’d snuck up on Clarke and tickled her together until she was scream-laughing.Madi liked hanging out with Lexa too.Clarke was a talker, but Lexa was quiet, just like her.They could hang out in the woods together for hours and barely say a word to each other. Lexa spoke through her actions, like Madi.And when she did speak, Lexa spoke quietly.It was kinda hard to imagine that Lexa had commanded armies, like she did in some of the stories Clarke had told her.But then they’d gone hunting together one day and Madi had seen it.The way Lexa got so focused, the way she prowled, the way she sprung into action, swift and decisive.Lexa was fierce.Her movements those of a warrior.Lexa didn’t tell you what kind of person she was. She just showed you. But you kinda had to pay attention.Not like Clarke, who just said what she was thinking.But Lexa knew so much stuff. Knew stuff about the plants and animals that Madi didn’t even know. Madi had gotten used to being the expert on valley life, but it was fun to learn new things.And Lexa had been teaching her so many things. About different ways to hunt, different ways to cook, different things that could be done with the plants in the valley.But Lexa didn’t sit her down and give her a lesson about it. She just did it in front of her.She’d showed Madi how to weave this basket thing that could be used to catch fish without having to stand super still in the lake waiting to spear them. How to weave this funnel shaped thing that went over the big open end of the basket. The funnel had a hole in the middle that the fish could swim in through to get the bait inside, but wouldn’t like to swim out of. Madi hadn’t believed that it would work, that the fish wouldn’t find their way back out of the hole. But then they’d tried it and it did work.Lexa had said it was a good way to fish, because you could decide whether to eat the fish it trapped or let them go unharmed. Said it was good to let fish whose bellies were swollen with eggs go. Said it was good to use snares that looped around furry little ankles but didn’t injure, rather than hunt with spears. That way, animals heavy with young, or who were still feeding their young could be let go. She said that creatures with young were often the easiest to catch, but that they were also the ones it was better to let go. So there would always be enough food in the valley. She said it was good to eat whatever animals there were the most of. Said that being a good cook was as important as being a good hunter, because a good cook could turn anything into something you wanted to eat.That was how Lexa talked. “It’s good to … because …” She never said “You should …” like Clarke. And sometimes Clarke forgot to say the “because …” part, the why part. But Lexa never did.Just being around Lexa was nice. Madi could see why Clarke liked her so much.Lexa was cool. Strong. Smart. And really funny, in a quiet sorta way.Being around Lexa also helped mend the sore spot in Madi’s heart … the one that was all bruised up from losing her parents, her friends, from losing all the people in her village ... Lexa was a lot more like them than Clarke. Madi loved Clarke … but … she was different than them.It was weird how Madi’s parents had always talked like they were afraid of Lexa … like she was some big bad monster whose fleimkepas would come steal Madi away and turn her into a monster too … but that was pretty hard to imagine.Lexa said she had 8 children in the bunker. Eight of them.She said they were kind and brave and smart like Madi.Madi could see that Lexa missed them from the way she talked about them … the faraway look in her eye … like she was imagining what they were doing right then …Those were the times when Madi would take Lexa’s hand.She could see that Lexa needed kids around … just like Clarke did.Honestly, Clarke needed more kids than just Madi …. One kid meant that Madi got all of her love and attention … which was good … but sometimes … it was a lot.And it would be nice for Madi to have someone else to help her with her homework … Someone who would just give her the right answers and not start the whole lesson over again when she got the answers wrong, the way Clarke often did.But having Lexa around gave Clarke someone else to focus on. Someone else to fuss over and give all that love to.And Madi liked seeing them together.Lexa would give Clarke like, the tiniest little smile and Clarke would stomp over and wrap herself around her like Lexa had ordered her to do it.It was like Clarke was Lexa’s pet. Head in her lap. Her leg over Lexa’s when they sat side by side.Lexa was good for Clarke. Took care of her. When Clarke needed a bath, Lexa would haul Clarke over her shoulder, take her to the lake and give her one. Ran her fingers through Clarke’s hair when Clarke’s head was in her lap. She knew what Clarke needed. When she was starting to get hungry. When she was starting to get tired. Always made sure Clarke was comfortable. That she had a blanket. Made sure there was always a comfortable spot beside her wherever she sat down so Clarke could sit next to her if she wanted to. And she always wanted to. She kept Clarke from getting lost in her thoughts too much, when Clarke got too quiet. Made her smile so many different kinds of smiles that Madi had never seen from Clarke before.Madi thought it was funny how Lexa treated her like a grown up and Clarke like her pet.She kinda loved it.Honestly.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“How can you be here when our people are in the bunker?” Madi asked as they ate dinner around the campfire one night.Clarke shot Madi a look, but Madi just shrugged, “You said no bunker talk for a while … It’s been 8 days.”Lexa looked at Clarke and Clarke sighed back at her.“It’s a fair question …” Lexa smiled at Madi, “I’m on a scouting mission for our people. Others have taken on my duties so I can come here and learn about the valley from you. I study Clarke’s notebooks, as you study. That is my work. And … I’m … having a … a bit of a …”Lexa’s forehead furrowed as she searched for the word.She hadn’t had to search for a word in a very long time … The flame had made sure of that. She’d had a massive vocabulary instantaneously at her disposal. In every language. All the clans’ dialects. All the languages of the old world too, before the first praimfaya. Even ancient languages no one spoke anymore.And shockingly, she could still recall an enormous amount of the information she’d learned while she’d had the flame.But this word … in English … was escaping her.And there wasn’t an equivalent word in Trig …“I am taking a bit of a …,” Lexa tried again, waiting for her brain to fill in the missing word, “When the work that … needs to be done is done … and … the new work has not yet started … so you can take time … for pleasure …”Lexa sighed and rubbed her forehead, “It’s a break, but longer … not just for sleep … or …,” Lexa glanced at Clarke, who smirked back her.She’d been the reason for a number of Lexa’s ‘breaks’ before praimfaya.“Longer than a break,” Lexa finally settled on, “Not just for a night.”“Is it a vac-,” Madi started.“It’s a retirement,” Clarke broke in.Said it with an air of finality. Annoyed that a ‘vacation’ was such a foreign concept to Lexa.Madi’s forehead furrowed at the weird new word, but Clarke gave her a look that said ‘no more questions’.“Is that what it is?” Lexa asked lightly, looking up at the stars for the answer.“Can I have a retirement?” Madi asked, “From school?”Clarke smiled at her, “School is only a few hours a day. And we take breaks all the time. Days and days off from school. We go camping too.”“You mean survival training?” Madi arched an eyebrow at her, “That’s even harder than school.”“Such training is very important Madi …,” Lexa said gently, backing Clarke up, “It … may not seem so … because you are preparing for something that hasn’t happened yet. But if it does happen … you will be so glad you are ready.”Madi sighed and looked away, like Clarke had already told her that about a billion times already.“Life is about more than just survival training though …,” Lexa winked at Clarke.Clarke grinned back at her, “I’m aware. And I promise, Madi has fun around here.”“So can I train with Lexa then?” Madi brightened, “For fun?”Clarke shot Madi a look.“It doesn’t make sense … Why can’t I train with her?” Madi pressed, “She trains every day. Alone. I should be allowed to train with her.”Lexa lifted her chin.Madi hadn’t asked to join her in the combat training she did each morning, practicing with her knives, her fighting techniques … She could practice on her own of course … that wasn’t a problem … but … it had been … surprising that Madi hadn’t asked to join. They did so many other fun things together … Were so alike in so many ways ... But Madi had shown zero interest. Didn’t even stay to watch.Lexa had wanted to offer … but she didn’t want to press if Madi wasn’t interested … And Clarke could be … unpredictable about such things. She wasn’t sure how Clarke would feel about it …But she knew how Clarke felt about it now.Clarke had told Madi not to.Even though she wanted to.And that stung.Madi was her …Madi should be able to train with her if she wanted to.“I said No,” Clarke snapped.And all of a sudden, Lexa was feeling super annoyed at Clarke for just telling Madi she couldn’t … without even talking to her about it.Lexa was the best fighter there. The most knowledgeable.She had the most to teach Madi … to help keep her safe.It was wasteful not to let Lexa teach her.And … she had so much experience teaching children to fight, teaching the other natblidas.All the other natblidas had training, all of her … other children … and Madi should as well.That was how she kept them safe.And … trained them … for the conclave … in the past … when there had been conclaves.But there weren’t conclaves anymore … not the way there used to be anyway ...They hadn’t figured out what the new system of succession would be yet ... but …Is that what Clarke was worried about?That Lexa would put Madi in the conclave to fight to the death because she was a natblida?Lexa had told Clarke they weren’t using the old conclave system anymore on her first day in the valley.Did Clarke think she was lying?Like how Clarke had lied when she’d promised that she would go to space to keep herself safe but had never actually left? Risking her life to stay … Shattering Lexa’s heart into a billion pieces because she thought she’d left? A billion pieces that Lexa had had to shove behind a locked door deep inside her chest for years …Lexa ate the rest of her meal in silence.Ate the meal that she had made for Madi and Clarke in total silence.Ate the rabbit she had caught for them in the snare that she had built. The rabbit that she had cleaned and cooked for them using her favorite recipe for rabbit … Though … she’d had to adapt the recipe quite a bit since the valley didn’t have all the necessary ingredients … but it was very tasty nonetheless … They’d both said so … Especially with the small potatoes she’d found in one of the clearings a few days ago … that Madi would like because they were a little sweet … She had taken only enough for the three of them, and then cut up a bunch more in the right way so that they would sprout and make 10x more potatoes … and then buried the potato pieces in a new section of Clarke’s garden that she had tilled up … so that Madi would always have enough.So … Lexa was good enough to find potatoes Madi would like in the wilderness … cultivate them in a patch of garden that she’d made for them, so they would always have plenty of them, which was a good thing too because Madi had asked for more and clearly loved them, but Lexa was not worthy of having any input into whether Madi could learn how to defend herself?Lexa wasn’t hungry anymore.She needed to take a walk.She handed the rest of her potatoes over to Madi … which Madi looked thrilled about … and got up, started walking toward the lake.“Lex, do you want-“ Clarke called after her.“No.” Lexa snapped, not even breaking her stride as she walked down the path under the moonlight.When she got to the edge of the lake, the water looked so peaceful. All sparkly and serene under the light of the full moon. The water was perfectly still, like a sea of green glass stretched out before her.Lexa picked up a fist-sized stone from the shore, tossed it up and caught it in her hand a few times.And then she reared back and chucked the fuck out of it … Threw the rock as hard as she possibly could.Threw it so goddamn hard that she didn’t even hear it splash in the water.Maybe she’d thrown it so hard that it had flown across the entire lake and hit a tree on the other side?If so, Lexa hoped no birds were disturbed in their nests. A rock shaking the branches of a tree they were in would be unsettling for them. Especially for any baby birds sleeping in their nests.Lexa sighed and picked up another rock, reared back and threw it, but only about half as hard as she fucking wanted to.It made a satisfying sploosh in the water. She picked up another rock, reared back, and threw the fuck outta that one too. Just a little harder. Mindful of the birds. She did it again and again. Then four more times. Heard lots of satisfying splooshes.She let out another deep sigh.Maybe she was … overreacting. Being too emotional. Ever since the flame had been taken out … or really, ever since she’d come to the valley, her emotions had been all over the place. That wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was just that … she was normally so good at controlling her emotions. Really excellent at it honestly.But she’d had help from the flame too.And now, all of her feelings were just left there for her to deal with on her own.Had she always been so emotional?She highly doubted it.She could only remember crying a few times in her entire life. Three times over Clarke. Twice over Costia.She didn’t remember ever crying when she’d been training for the conclave with the other natblidas. The other kids could be pretty emotional though … cried sometimes … late at night. Lexa snuck out of her bed sometimes to comfort them, if it seemed like they needed it. Or … if they were crying too loudly … loud enough that they might wake up Titus and get in trouble for crying.Lexa didn’t cry though.Didn’t cry at night.Didn’t cry when she got hurt during training.Didn’t cry at the conclave when she’d had to end the lives of the other natblidas … her … friends …Didn’t cry when she’d seen the looks on their faces when they were about to be told which of each other they’d have to fight against in each round of the conclave … How … they’d all looked at her … before the names were read out … how they’d all looked so … afraid of her … Really afraid … especially the ones she had comforted at night … That had hurt the worst. But she hadn’t cried about it … Even Luna had looked so afraid … Luna … the most arrogant and delusional among them … Who constantly taunted Lexa and bragged about how she would kick her ass, even though she’d never actually managed to in the hundreds of matches they must have had by the time Lexa was 12 and the conclave had happened.She’d … probably cried when she’d been taken from her parents … when she’d been … just a baby … when the fleimkepas had come and … taken her from them …She couldn’t remember back that far though …Lexa looked up at the sky full of stars and sighed.
God … why was she even thinking about all this?
This wasn’t even about all that …This was about … potatoes was it?No.That wasn’t it.This was about … Madi.Yeah.This was about how Clarke had just decided that Madi couldn’t train with her even though she wanted to.How Clarke hadn’t even spoken to her about it.How Clarke had just assumed that Lexa was some kind of monster who would get Madi involved in fights to the death if they trained together …If Lexa showed Madi how to protect herself. How to keep herself safe.Clarke should not have assumed that. Should not have assumed that she was a monster.Even though … Lexa didn’t actually know yet what the new succession system would be that would replace the old fight to the death conclave system … She … hadn’t really spent much time on that. She’d just implemented her own succession plan for herself by choosing Aden as her successor. Had told Gaia that Aden would be her choice when the time came to replace her. Had made her swear an oath to honor that choice. Made Gaia swear in front of the entire bunker full of people that there would be no more fights to the death for any natblidas going forward because human life was too precious and rare now for such waste.Even if she didn’t really know how things would work after Aden … Clarke still should have come to her to discuss it if she was worried about it.And conclaves or no … Clarke should want Madi to have the best training possible, so that she would always be safe.And there was no better teacher on earth for Madi than her.When it came to Madi’s safety, Clarke should come to her. And … when it came to … anything really … to do with Madi …Lexa let out a sigh.She would talk to Clarke about this tomorrow.When she wasn’t so worked up.She was a little calmer now, but she could still feel a mess of feelings swirling around aimlessly in her chest.She decided to go for a run on the little trail around the lake in the moonlight to sweat all those feelings out.It was a lot easier not to worry about feelings when your calves were aching and lungs were burning from a hard run.She turned to face the little trail and started to run, her feet crunching hard against the dirt as she flew down the trail under the moonlight. —— When Lexa got back to the house, she was still a little damp from having jumped in the lake after her run.She’d gotten so sweaty.Sweated straight through her shirt from … her run.And she’d figured that a jump in the lake would not only help clean her off, the cool water might also shock any last unruly emotions out of her system that might still be lingering inside her.She felt better.Calmer.She blew out the candles that were burning in the house as she walked to their bedroom.Too many candles really.Like … a trail of them leading to her and Clarke’s room.Weird to light so many.What had Clarke been thinking?She opened the door to their bedroom and saw even more candles.And saw Clarke … lying on her side in their bed … drawing in her little notebook … and … the covers were pulled back … and … her legs were stretched out … and … Clarke was wearing something … barely anything really … like … the shortest top imaginable … like … half a tank top … that … left her stomach exposed … and that … scooped down very low into her cleavage … and … she was wearing a lacy pair of underwear … and her tan body looked absolutely radiant in the warm glow of the too many candles … And … Clarke’s blonde hair was all messy … in that … really appealing kinda way … And she was looking back at her with that grin on her face … the one that meant that she was about to fuck Lexa senseless.Lexa’s jaw clenched.Did Clarke think she could make her forget about the whole not talking to her about Madi wanting to train with her thing? Just because she was so gorgeous and looked so extremely fuckable lying in their bed like that?Lexa stomped over to the bed and grabbed a pillow, turned to leave, stomping away.“Hey …” Clarke called out.Lexa sighed and grudgingly turned to face her.And oh … Clarke was standing up on her knees now … on the bed … and … that half a tank top she was wearing … it … left the soft curving undersides of her breasts exposed … and … her eyes were all sparkly … even though her face looked so serious.“What.” Lexa grumbled at her for being so ridiculously gorgeous.Clarke folded her arms, kinda covering the view of her chest … which … was a pity …“Where are you going?” Clarke arched an eyebrow at her.“To sleep,” Lexa grumbled.Clarke’s forehead furrowed and her bottom lip poked out just the teeniest bit in an adorable little pout, “Where?”“Outside,” Lexa grumbled back.Clarke’s eyebrows raised, “Out-side?”Lexa nodded once and then looked away from the vision of loveliness before her, folded her arms, hugging the pillow against her chest“In the cold?” Clarke cocked her head to one side, “There are dozens of houses here.”Lexa looked back at her, “Yes. But they’re all yours. So …” and then she turned and started walking to the door again.“Hey … wait!” Clarke called out, her bare feet taking quick steps across the floorboards and grabbed Lexa’s shoulder.“What.” Lexa snapped, whirling around to face her.She tried to blur her eyes a little so she wouldn’t get distracted by how fucking pretty Clarke was with her forehead all furrowed like that … and … by the way her pretty mouth was open a little … and … by the way her pretty blue eyes looked all sparkly in the candlelight.“Tell me what’s wrong,” Clarke said seriously.“I’m mad at you,” Lexa said simply. Said it … for the first time … in her entire life.Clarke’s eyebrows raised, and then scrunched back down, “For what?”For being too pretty.And … a lot of other stuff.Lexa lifted her chin, “You should have talked to me. About Madi.”The furrow in Clarke’s forehead deepened, “What about her?”“You know what it’s about,” Lexa leaned in a little, “If she wants to train with me, we should discuss it.”Clarke folded her arms, “I don’t want her doing that kind of training.”Lexa leaned back, “You most certainly do. You train her to fight yourself, right? Survival training?”Clarke looked away. Shook her head a little.“I’m the best teacha she could possibly have!” Lexa pressed, “I will make sure she can defend herself. You want her to be safe, right?”Clarke looked back at her in silence, her jaw working a little.Lexa’s face hardened, “Or is it just because it’s me …”“It’s not your call to make …,” Clarke said crisply.Lexa sighed, “There aren’t conclaves anymore … if that’s what you’re worried about. Not the kind you’re thinking of anyway.”Clarke leaned forward a little, “Says who? The current Heda? What about the next Heda? What will they say?”Lexa’s spine stiffened, “That kind of conclave is over. And … even if it wasn’t … that’s all the more reason for Madi to know how to defend herself. I don’t want her in harm’s way either. Of course I don’t … but … everyone needs to know how to defend themselves. Especially Madi ...”Clarke’s expression turned to steel, “Especially her?”“Yes …” Lexa snapped, “Especially her. Madi needs to be safe. And … she is a natblida … And … Anything to do with her concerns me. I should be consulted.”Clarke arched an eyebrow, “Well, I’m a nightblood too. And I’m her mom. So. She’s covered.”Lexa blinked at her, squeezed the pillow tighter against her chest, “Anything to do with her concerns me … ‘cause … she’s a natblida … and …”Clarke’s face softened.“And …” Lexa looked away, “Anything to do with her concerns me …”“You said that already …,” Clarke said softly.“Well it’s true …” Lexa huffed, still looking away.“Why?” Clarke asked quietly, “Why does it concern you?”“‘Cause …,” Lexa said, still looking away, “‘Cause … she’s a natblida … and … because she’s yours … and …”Clarke stepped in closer, “What else? Why should you have any say … at all … in anything to do with her?”Feelings were just roiling in Lexa’s chest.She felt like she was about to have yet another emotional meltdown …She squeezed the pillow tighter against her chest.All the thoughts and feelings she’d had by the lake came whooshing back, were swirling in her chest again.Clarke leaned in closer, “I don’t give a fuck about Hedas or nightblood. So if that’s all you’ve got …”Lexa turned to face her, her eyes all glassy now in the candlelight, “‘Cause she’s …”“What.” Clarke looked back at her, “She’s what. Say it.”“‘Cause she’s …,” Lexa looked at her, her expression crumbling a little, “She’s … so young … and …”Clarke gave her a sympathetic look, “She is young …”“And she’s like …,” Lexa’s heart started hammering, the words sticking in her throat …“Like what …,” Clarke asked softly.“She’s …,” Lexa looked at her a little desperately, “She’s so much like … Exactly like … Or … how I might’ve been if … things had been … And … if she can’t defend herself …”Clarke nodded and reached up, ran a hand through Lexa’s hair, “I know … And I’m not gonna let anything happen to her. You can trust me. I’m gonna take care of her …”Lexa shook her head a little, “You need my help … to … understand her. She needs to hear things in a certain way. And … she’s gonna want to do certain things. And if you forbid it … it will only make her want to prove you wrong. She’s so proud and … smart and … you have to work with that … not against it.”Clarke sighed, her eyes filling with tears, “You’re right. I should do more of that. I’ll try harder.”Lexa dropped the pillow and took Clarke’s hands in hers, “Or you could just let me do it. Talk to me when there’s a problem … When you don’t know what to do. And … when she needs something … or … anything. You’ve done so well with her … You’re doing so well with her. She needs a mother like you … She’s … so happy … but … I can help too. And you should let me help … make decisions …”Clarke sighed, tears just streaming down her cheeks, and said quietly, “She just worships you you know … I knew it was gonna be bad but … it’s so much worse than I could’ve ever imagined … You’re all she talks about. Everything you do she wants to do … She wants to be you … And you’re … gentler here … It’s easier for her to imagine it. But she doesn’t know the reality of what that means … And I can’t let her get wrapped up in all that.”Clarke blinked back more tears, “Every time I look at her … I see you. And I can’t let them do to her what they did to you. She already looks up to you so much … And the more you-”“But she’s mine too,” Lexa lifted her chin, bravely.“Yes …,” Clarke looked back at her, “And that’s why I won’t let anything happen to her. And if you want to be in the picture … the way you wanna be, then we need to be on the same page about that.”Lexa huffed and looked away, “You are both mine.”“Yes …,” Clarke grinned and leaned forward against Lexa’s chest, pressing her soft breasts and hard nipples against Lexa’s chest because she was absolutely shameless, and husked out, “Not Heda’s … Yours. So what are you gonna do about it?”Lexa’s hands wrapped around Clarke’s waist and pulled her tight against her, “Whatever I want.”Clarke started pressing soft kisses under Lexa’s jaw and mumbled out, “Yeah?”“And I’m mad at you …,” Lexa said, tilting up her chin so Clarke would kiss a little further under her jaw, “… for lying to me … about leaving. I’m … glad you’re here … Of course I’m glad … But … staying here … that was so dangerous Clarke …”“Makes sense …,” Clarke mumbled and kissed her way down the side of Lexa’s neck, “But … I couldn’t leave you … I could never do that …”Lexa huffed again.Clarke leaned over and sucked a dark mark onto the side of Lexa’s neck and whispered, “… ‘cause I worship you too …”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Twelve days in the valley.Twelve glorious days.Twelve days of all sitting together at the table while Madi had her lessons and Lexa read Clarke’s notebooks beside her.Twelve nights of sitting around the campfire listening to Lexa tell Madi very G-rated stories about the clans. Watching Madi listen with wrapt attention, leaning forward a little on her seat. Eating the awesome meals Lexa somehow knew how to make from so many of the different plants in the valley that they had never even thought to try before.The variety in their normal diet so very welcome.Twelve days of seeing Madi just fucking flourish from Lexa’s attention. Seeing her manners improve as she copied Lexa’s extreme politeness. Seeing Madi’s skills improve from all the new things Lexa had been showing her how to do. Seeing Madi just bursting with pride as she showed Clarke each new thing Lexa had taught her.Clarke had never been so happy in her entire life.This was the first 100% functional family she had ever been a part of.They each had a past of course ... Traumas they had been through, that they each carried with them as individuals. But the bond between the three of them, there in the valley, was free of all that.Clarke’s bond with Lexa had more than a little baggage of course.They had done things … to each other … in the past that … weren’t great …That had left scars.But even those scars were feeling a little less jagged around the edges as Clarke watched Lexa and Madi sitting side by side on the hillside, each chewing a long blade of sweetgrass, looking out at the valley together. As she and Lexa sat across from each other on the couch, their feet in each other’s laps, giving each other foot rubs after a long day. As Lexa took Madi out into the valley to show her how to live sustainably in this paradise.And then Madi came home and taught Clarke all those things.Got to be the teacher.Got to correct Clarke’s mistakes.Got to answer her questions.Got to raise an eyebrow and look at her skeptically when Clarke was just about to mess up the weave of her fish trapping basket.Lexa had been right.Madi’s pride was very important to her.Clarke been forced to just white-knuckle it through her own childhood doing whatever she’d been told to do. Her pride was irrelevant.But pride was such a motivating force for Madi.She needed to work with that.And Madi needed her tasks broken down into little chunks that she could master one at a time and take pride in mastering, before moving on to the next challenge. Until she’d mastered the whole thing.Lexa knew how to break things down like that.Clarke’s brain worked the other way around.She needed to see the big picture. To see how all the parts fit together into a whole before any of the pieces made sense.But she was trying to focus on the little pieces now.The components.Ignore the big picture.Just focus on Lexa’s soft expressions. The sight of Lexa sleeping peacefully beside her in their bed every morning. The feeling of Lexa loving her. Loving her in a big field of flowers under the midday sun. Loving her in the forest, Clarke’s back pressed up against a tree. Loving her wherever and whenever she felt like, for as long as she wanted to. She was even worse than Clarke in that respect. Or … even better than Clarke in that respect really ... Insatiable. They had certainly been making the most of their time together.And Clarke had seen Lexa falling more and more in love with the valley each day too.With all its little creatures. With all the trees and flowers and plants she seemed to know so shockingly much about.Clarke had always thought of Polis as Lexa’s home.She was so proud of it. The bustling streets. People from all the clans mixing together, trading with each other, getting along.But Clarke could see now that Lexa was a forest creature.Trikru.Through and through.Was just as attentive to each little aspect of the nature surrounding her as she had been to the politics surrounding her in Polis.Was just as interested in investigating the mosses in the lake and the different kinds of saps from the trees as she had been in trade deals and military strategy in her old life.That was how Clarke had to think about it.Lexa’s old life.Denial.It wasn’t … the best coping strategy … but it certainly was one.And as much as Clarke wanted to just be grateful for this time they were having together, and as immensely grateful as she was for it, the idea of starting the planning for everyone else to come to their perfect, quiet paradise, the idea of Lexa going back to being Heda … back to the bunker was just … really painful to think about.It was so much easier to just … not think about it.And it was a lot easier not to think about it when none of the things from their old lives were there with them.When no one but Madi even called Lexa Heda … and it was filled with so much love that it didn’t even sound like the same word. And when no one called her Wanheda. And when none of the familiar faces from their old lives were there with them. And when Lexa wasn’t wearing her Heda gear … except … for the black leather pants Clarke had found in the village a few weeks after she’d first arrived … and had tailored to Lexa’s size. Because leather pants on Lexa could stay … she would make an exception for those …But every other part of their old lives could fuck right off.Lexa didn’t seem to be on any kind of schedule at all for returning to the bunker … Which made sense … She’d had no idea what she was gonna find when she’d left the bunker … How long it would take to find her. What the situation would be when she did.It had taken Lexa a week to get there, but in the rover, it would only take a few hours to drive Lexa back …If Clarke did drive Lexa back …If she didn’t chain Lexa to a tree to keep her from leaving in the middle of the night. Or … tie Lexa to their bed … Yes … the bed plan was better … so much better … in … lots of ways …She might just … practice doing that with Lexa later that night … Just … to make sure her knot tying skills were … good … and … inescapable …But Clarke could feel that conversation they hadn’t yet had about the future hovering on the periphery … like that big storm they’d been able to taste on the breeze for days that had suddenly rushed into the valley on the 13th day, and that was currently pelting all the little houses in the village with rain.Madi had been out in the woods when the storm had finally whooshed in and broke, and had opted to run as fast as she could all the way home.Had shown up at their house dripping wet and grumbling, muttering a few of the new Trig curse words she must’ve heard Lexa say.Lexa probably hadn’t taught them to her on purpose … but sometimes, she got so focused on whatever little project she was working on with her hands … and something slipped or didn’t fit quite right or she accidentally cut her finger while whittling and the words would slip out …Madi didn’t suffer for long though.They had a fireplace now.An indoor fireplace.Which Madi promptly put some kindling and logs into and lit, once she’d stripped out if her wet clothes and wrapped herself in a blanket. And then she’d crashed out asleep in front of the flames and Lexa had carried her off to her bedroom.Lexa did stuff like that now … Put Madi to bed … woke her up in the mornings …And even beyond that, Lexa had been so goddamn industrious around the place it was just shocking.Somehow, between her long and wonderful nights with Clarke, her morning combat training, her notebook reading while Madi had her lessons, her little treks out into the woods to survey the valley and collect supplies for the meals she made them when it wasn’t Madi’s turn to cook, when she wasn’t teaching them loads of new skills, Lexa had found the time to do dozens of little projects around the place. Had made them the indoor fireplace. Had expanded the garden. Had planted more varieties of edible plants. Herbs and root vegetables she’d found in the forest. Fixed all the wobbly legs of their tables and chairs. Sharpened every knife she could find. Whittled Madi a whistle that she could use to stay in touch when she was off in the woods, and one that Clarke could use to call her back home. Lexa had made a slingshot too that Madi was completely obsessed with. Had whittled them simple chess pieces and made a chessboard out of a round slice of a tree stump from a tree the villagers must have cut down long ago.Clarke had had a little flashback of playing chess with Wells on the Ark when she’d first seen Lexa teaching Madi how to play one evening in front of the fire. But the fact that the board was made out of wood from Madi’s village, and that the pieces had been carved by Lexa’s hands made it possible for Clarke to not be too bothered by her memories of chess with Wells on the Ark. And she would make new memories playing chess with Lexa and Madi.Lexa might not be being Heda right now, but she was always tinkering, always building and assessing and up to something, improving things wherever she could.It was all very domestic.And Clarke was very into the whole Lexa pouring all of her many talents into their little family thing.It was so hot Clarke could barely stand it.Made Clarke wanna just reward the fuck outta Lexa for being such an amazing provider.Which of course she did …And Lexa certainly smiled a lot more than she ever had when Clarke had seen her using all her time and talents to try and manage the clans.It was so nice to be able to do stuff for her too. In Polis, Lexa had people to cook for her, braid her hair, pour her baths and make sure she always had a fire and clean clothes and a soft bed.Which really seemed like a waste … because Clarke loved being the one who got to do all those things for Lexa.And now she got to.She loved making her little family breakfast in the mornings, collecting firewood to keep their little family warm. Drying jerky in the little smoke house for them.Pouring Lexa hot baths especially … giving her hot baths especially … joining her in the bath …The sides of Lexa’s neck were covered in purple hickeys now. The kind of love bites Clarke had had to be careful about giving her in their old lives … for Lexa’s propriety or whatever … But Clarke had been making up for lost time over the 13 days Lexa had been in the valley. Grinned proudly every time she saw them now.Was grinning at them right at that very moment in fact as she sipped the tea Lexa had basically invented for them.Barely making any progress on her plans for Madi’s math lesson for tomorrow as she watched Lexa read through the giant stack of her notebooks that documented every little thing they knew about the valley.Lexa’s forehead was furrowed prettily in concentration. Her chair was sideways. Her socked feet up on the table, ankles crossed. Yet another new thing Lexa did now that Clarke had never seen Lexa do before: Put her feet up on a table.Lexa murmured something to herself.“What was that?” Clarke asked, tired of Lexa not looking at her. Lexa had been indoors reading ever since the rain started. Slowly making her way through Clarke’s stack of notebooks.Lexa turned the page and said absently, “These are so useful. You’ve saved us months … years maybe.”Clarke sighed.She still had her deep misgivings, so many concerns about giving the valley back to humanity.The last place on earth that humans hadn’t completely destroyed.All that was left of nature.All that was left of the incredible beauty of their planet that had been lost … Which she didn’t trust humans not to ruin …She felt protective of the valley. Of all it’s goodness and beauty. Of nature itself. Of the last green place on earth.Felt just as protective of the valley as she did of Madi.This place deserved to be left in the hands of Nature.Not to become just a farm to serve humanity’s insatiable wants and whims. Not to become merely a “resource” for humans to use up and fight over as if it belonged to them.Not after all the devastation humanity had inflicted on every other creature. Not after they had taken so much from Nature … literally almost every single thing. Twice.What assurance could there be that the people in the bunker wouldn’t do the same?Just as the people from the Ark had immediately started destroying the ecosystem around their crashed ship when they’d gotten to the ground. Cutting down scores of trees in all directions without a second thought. Overhunting, overfishing, taking far more than they needed. Leaving far less for every other creature. Jumping straight into conflicts with each other.And before she knew it, Clarke was letting all those thoughts tumble right out of her mouth.All those deep dark fears she had in her head about humanity, about what they would do to the valley, to each other, the politics, the risk of violence, of crime they would bring, all the terrible things she’d seen from humanity that she never wanted Madi to have to witness.Lexa turned in her seat to face her as it all just spilled out of her.She listened silently.Did not ask any questions.And when Clarke finished talking, Lexa just sighed.And then Lexa’s posture shifted, and her whole expression shifted back into the familiar pensive Heda Lexa expression that Clarke had known before the valley.She said so quietly, “My mission has failed.”Clarke just looked at her, unsure of what she meant.“It is … a para-docks …,” Lexa said quietly, her tongue stumbling a little over the word.She put her hands flat on the table, looked down at the grains of the wood, “Every day, the flame told me ‘Save them’. Over and over again … Whispered it to me in my mind countless times … louder and louder as the years went on … So I could never get used to it … never stop hearing it …,” Lexa shook her head a little at the memory, and Clarke’s heart ached for Lexa at that information. The pressure, the constant pressure Lexa had been under from her own mind … from the implant that others had put into her head … the head of a child. No escape. Not even in her own thoughts.Lexa’s fingers flexed a little against the table.“But how do you save them from themselves?” Lexa asked quietly, “That is always the problem. Our people … they take too much … Want more as soon as we get used to what they have just received … It is never enough. Every commander sees it happen. Our people … they cannot help themselves …”Lexa looked away, “I gave them peace …  the coalition … the kind of peace they had never had … Ended their wars … But … they were not satisfied for long. So many still wanted to take from each other instead of trade … Took too much from their own lands and wanted to fight their neighbors for theirs ...”Clarke nodded, “Like Arkadia … after you gave us the land … How Pike attacked Trikru’s village to take theirs …”“Like Pike, like Nia, like the Mountain Men … and countless others before them …,” Lexa sighed, “… who would rather take with their hands covered in the blood of their own people rather than make deals with their neighbors … Only my army kept the peace …”“There were others who did better … The … Nay-tive Amerycans …,” Lexa said quietly, “Some of the tribes had found a way ... They did not take too much. Lived in balance with nature … with their neighbors … Five different tribes living together in peace for hundreds of years … the Iroquois League …”Clarke’s forehead furrowed, “How do you know that?”Lexa sighed, still looking away, “Bekka and I … we talked about it … in my mind. The different ways things could be … The different ways things have been … different versions of … civil-aye-zayshen …”Clarke’s eyebrows raised.“The flame knows all the ways … all the different ways. I … was curious … wanted to know … So I asked the flame … It told me …,” Lexa said quietly, “Those people … the Native Amerycans …,” it rolled off her tongue a little more smoothly this time,“Some of them had found a way … the way … to live in balance with each other … with nature … But we are not their youngens … We are the youngens of those who destroyed them … All that they had learned for so many generations … how they had found that balance … lost to us …” Lexa looked back down at the table and shook her head a little, “What is broken in us … sometimes … I fear it’s in our blood … We can be good … for a time … But … we still carry our brokenness … It is always with us … like a memory we can’t remember … A darkness we take with us … like a forgotten memory that we make real … time and time again …”“But you’re not broken …,” Clarke looked back at her, utterly shocked with herself that she had now shifted into arguing the opposing view, making a case for humanity, or at least a part of it, when she so wholeheartedly agreed with Lexa’s assessment of the situation.Lexa looked up at her, “Yes. I am.”Clarke reached out and took Lexa’s hand.God, her heart could not bear hearing Lexa say that about herself. After all she had been put through, after all she had done to try to give her people peace, all the goodness in her that she had somehow managed to preserve in herself, in spite of everything.“We both are …,” Lexa added quietly, “As much as I don’t wish to say it … To even think it …”Clarke nodded. She was broken. And she wasn’t ashamed to admit it.“ALIE had the solution …,” Lexa looked back at her, “She gave our people a place where they were finally satisfied. Her … way of doing it was wrong … Torturing people to make them go there instead of explaining it to them … Taking away their choice … But … she was made by us … So … of course she was a little broken too … She carried our greed, our curse of impatience … She healed them after their torture though … took away their pain … their brokenness. In a way that I never could. She only wanted their minds … could give them all that they wished to have in that place … and we … I … should have let them go …”Lexa looked away, “Maybe … if there had been more time to negotiate … I could have made a truce with ALIE … so she would only take those who wanted to go … instead of forcing everyone … But … even if there wasn’t time … when she said praimfaya was coming … I should have let her take them to the City of Light …”Clarke shook her head a little, “Lexa … after they took the chip … they weren’t even themselves anymore ...”Lexa looked back at her, “But some version of their minds would have lived on … safe from the radiation. All those people I couldn’t save … they would have lived on … in a way … And they would have been at peace … the kind of peace that I could not give them.“Clarke nodded slowly.It was a harsh truth. Such a harsh truth. They had made a mistake. A HUGE one.“Save them …” Lexa said quietly, “I … never questioned it … What saving meant … beyond saving their lives ... Bekka said I should not let ALIE take them … but … it was my decision …”Lexa sighed, “And now … seeing this place … how little is left … Maybe it is our brothers and sisters who need saving … from us … The creatures … they belong here … Every one of them … They fit … It is plain to see. Too many rabbits means more hawks. Too many hawks means more mice to eat their eggs. They are in balance. We don’t fit. We are not like them …”Clarke blew out a breath.Somehow, having this talk about her fears … her worries … about humanity … this talk that was so heavy was actually making her feel lighter. Laying it all out on the table, instead of carrying the weight of those thoughts like a heavy stone lodged in the back of her brain.She feared that that stone, those dark thoughts, might be merely a symptom of her own personal history of brokenness. Something that only someone broken in the same way … with the same scars on their soul in the same places, with the same lines on their skin and bones from old wounds inflicted by their fellow human beings could ever understand. That only someone who had seen the same dark parts of humanity she had seen could ever understand … Or maybe no one else could understand it. Maybe it wasn’t possible to be broken in the exact same way as someone else.But Lexa understood.Even though she had been broken so differently by her people.So much more thoroughly. Inside and out. And not just the corporeality of her, not just her body, her skin and bones broken, not just her soft tissues and organs punctured by their blades as she’d worked to give them peace … Even the ethereal, weightless thoughts in her mind had been twisted by a foreign object her people had implanted in her head, while she clung to all that was good in her like a tree in a hurricane as she tried to protect her people from themselves.The unfathomable strength and goodness Lexa possessed …Maybe Lexa saw Clarke thinking that in the expression on her face.Because then Lexa said quietly, “I have been a monster too … so many times … During the wars … to make the coalition … I … let the darkness within me out … Spoke with the monster’s voice … Told the monsters in my people the things monsters like to hear … What they could have if they followed me … if they carried the burdens I needed them to carry to save the many … if they faught my wars to end wars … Because saving the many alone did not matter to them … only what they could have … Only what they would each gain mattered to them. Only what else they could take and hold in their grasping hands would convince them to fight for peace … But you cannot make peace … not with grasping hands … It must be here …,” Lexa tapped her chest, “… inside you … No amount of grasping can capture it. You must accept what you have and care for it … be content … The boo-dists … they understood …”Clarke’s eyebrows raised.Did Lexa have a comparative religion class in her head too?“Even now … in the bunker …,” Lexa looked away, “I try to give them peace … inside themselves … music … games … the movements together in silence … to help make their monsters go quiet for a little while … It helps. But … they can only accept it, only allow themselves to feel it in small doses … because of their brokenness. Thoughts of all they wish to have … of all that they have had to let go of and wish to have again someday keep them suffering … keep them broken …”Lexa looked across the table at her, “They still try to take from one another … even now … when there is so little to be had. Blankets that others need to keep warm, when each person already has their own blanket. Argue over which bunks they sleep in … even though the bunks are all the same … Try to take what few items … what few comforts each of them were able to bring with them into the bunker. Only the threat of punishment keeps order. Just as they could never just be satisfied with their own lands … and my peace had to be maintained by force. Always wanting more … taking more … that will not work with 1,200 people in a valley this size … They are … a threat to this place …”Clarke nodded. Not surprised at all to hear what the people in the bunker had been up to.She remembered life on the Ark … conditions so much like the bunker ...Only the hope of more, of a better future had kept them going in space. But so many had been impatient for that better future. Had stolen from each other. Even when there was so little to be stolen. Even though those they stole from were in the exact same boat. Needed what little they had.Those who could be content had to be protected from the greed of those who couldn’t.And even once they’d gotten to the ground, once their better future had finally become a reality … just a few months after Lexa had given them the land under Arkadia … the majority of Skykru had elected Pike to steal more land from the Grounders and go to war against them.“I … must think about this …,” Lexa looked at her.Clarke nodded.Because of course. It was a lot to think about.What would it mean practically?What were the implications for what happened next?Was it even possible to keep the people in the bunker from taking too much from the valley?From fighting each other over it and ruining the place?“I have seen the world destroyed twice …,” Lexa looked back at her, “A barren world … nearly everything lost … twice. When I first took the flame … I saw the first praimfaya in my mind … through the eyes of the first commanders … when the earth was covered in ash … and now … I have seen this … with my own eyes …”Clarke nodded.“We cannot fail again …,” Lexa said quietly, “We cannot fail to take care of this place … the last of nature …”Clarke looked at Lexa for a long moment, then said, “I’ve been thinking about it … You wanna know my answer?”Lexa chewed her lip a little, like she wasn’t sure. Like maybe this line of thinking they were headed down was wading into such deep water they might drown ... Like maybe this perspective that they had now, when they were separate from everyone and everything … when they actually had the time to reflect … would leave them lost in a wilderness that there might be no coming back from …But Clarke had an answer … and Lexa wanted to hear it.Lexa nodded.Clarke squeezed her hand, looking her in the eye, “All I want a quiet life … with the people I love. With the only people I know who are as kind and unselfish as they are smart. And I wanna love them with my whole heart for as long as I can. And … I wanna know that the people I love are safe for once. I don’t wanna fight anymore …,” Clarke looked down at their hands, started playing with Lexa’s fingers a little, “The only fighting I wanna do is with you … about the dumbest stuff … Who’s turn it is to clean up … Who steals the covers too much …”Lexa smiled at her softly.Clarke looked up at her, “You know I’d do just about anything for you …”“Yes,” Lexa said quietly.“Even let you bring them here … the people from the bunker …,” Clarke continued, “… but it’s such a huge risk, giving them this place … the last of nature. I will fight to protect it.”“You could have kept it for yourself …,” Lexa looked back at her, “With Madi … You didn’t have to tell us about the valley. We would never have known.”Clarke met her gaze, “They don’t know … All my message said was this location and ‘safe’. That could mean anything. They haven’t seen what’s here …”Clarke sighed, “And I’m selfish too … I wanted you here with me.”Lexa looked back at her and nodded, “I don’t know what to do about it yet. How to bring them here and not ruin this place … I just … don’t know … But … I have 3 years to prepare them …”Clarke looked away, then looked back at her, “I don’t wanna wait 3 years for you to come back here.”Lexa’s face fell.Clarke got up, walked around the table, pushed back Lexa’s chair and took a seat on Lexa. Straddled her lap. Laced her fingers over the back of Lexa’s neck.“I don’t wanna wait another 3 minutes for you …,” Clarke said, her eyes dusting over Lexa’s face, “Madi can’t live in that bunker … Living like that isn’t good for her … you know that. And she’s not safe there … Not like she is here. And living in the bunker isn’t good for you either … and you’re not safe there ...”Lexa swallowed hard.Clarke leaned in, like she was gonna kiss her, then leaned back a little, looked her in the eye, “Everything that’s yours is right here. This house … This is your house ...”She reached down, took Lexa’s hand and placed it over her heart, “This is yours …”Clarke nodded at the closed door over Lexa’s shoulder, where Madi was sleeping, wrapped in a blanket, where Lexa had carried her and put her to bed, “Madi … She’s yours too. Everything that’s yours is right here.”“I …,” Lexa started, but Clarke shook her head, pressed Lexa’s hand a little more firmly over her heart.“The world ended. And everything that’s yours is here …,” Clarke said softly, “Everything else … Every one else you think you owe something to … That you think you have to go back to that bunker for … You didn’t ask for any of that. You never had a choice. In your whole life. They never had to earn you …”Clarke looked at her gently, “They didn’t even ask … They just took … Took you from your parents … Took your childhood away from you … Took your entire life away from you … They only gave you one choice … Serve them or die. And that isn’t a choice …”Lexa closed her eyes.It was painful just how true that was.There was a logic behind what her people had done to her. A brutal logic. They needed a natblida who could rule them with the wisdom of the flame. They needed that person to be the strongest, to do whatever was required, even kill their fellow natblidas. And it was better if that person didn’t seek the role, if they weren’t the kind of person who sought power for themselves. If they were simply the smartest and strongest … raised from birth to be that way without any family allegiances, and then were simply installed as leader without any choice in the matter.But that logic didn’t change the fact that it was a cruel system for all the natblidas involved.Clarke ran her thumb gently over Lexa’s cheek, her other hand still pressing Lexa’s hand over her heart, “But you have a choice now. And you don’t owe them anything. Not a single thing. They owe you.”“But-,” Lexa started.Clarke put her hand over Lexa’s mouth, looked her in the eye, “There isn’t a single person in that bunker who would stay there if they didn’t have to. If they could leave the way you can … Who would stay there if they could have what you have right here. Everyone who loves you is here. Everyone who loves you for you. Everyone who wants to earn your love is here. That thing in your head … that’s telling you you don’t have a choice … that you have to go back … that you belong to them … That’s not true. We’re your people Lexa. You belong here.”Clarke had made her case. She took her hand away from Lexa’s mouth.Lexa looked at her for a long moment, then said quietly, “My … circumstances have changed …”The wheels in Clarke’s mind started turning … whirring … spinning …What if … Lexa did have someone in that bunker who loved her for her … and … that was why Lexa was so different now … softer. Lexa would still come to the valley regardless of course … Would love her regardless … they had a deep bond … had been through so much together … But … they had been apart for 2 years … Clarke had been alone … but … Lexa had been in the bunker with 1,199 other people … And how Lexa was in bed now had changed …Clarke’s face fell.She looked away quickly, her eyes filling with tears. Her hand slide off of Lexa’s, that was still pressed over her heart.She closed her eyes and let out a shaky breath, big tears slid down her cheeks, “You have someone … in the bunker … I was gone … You thought I’d left … That’s why you’re so …”And it took Lexa just a moment to realize what Clarke was thinking.“Clarke …,” Lexa whispered.Clarke looked down at Lexa’s lap, fidgeting her fingers together, “It’s ok. I get it. I totally l get it. I was gone and … and …”She looked back at Lexa, “But everything I said is still true. This is still your home. We still love you. And anyone who cares about you would want you to stay here too ... Because you’re happy here.”Lexa smiled at her softly, “I am happy here.”Clarke nodded a little, looked back at her carefully, “And you do have a choice. It’s totally up to you if you go back or not. What matters is what you want.”“There isn’t someone else Clarke …,” Lexa said softly, “Not like that.”Clarke’s forehead furrowed … She looked … almost … disappointed?“What’s wrong?” Lexa asked, brushing the tears off Clarke’s cheeks with her thumb.Clarke sighed, “That’s … almost … worse … You should’ve had someone … who loves you … Two years underground is like 10 years up here.”Lexa nodded. That was probably true.Clarke looked back at Lexa carefully, “Something has changed though … You’re … different now …” and then added hastily, “Not bad different … Not at all. You’re … so good … But … I’ve been … wondering …”Lexa sighed, “It’s because I took out the flame.”Clarke’s jaw dropped open and a single word fell out:“What?”Lexa nodded a little, “I didn’t know if I would make it back from my journey here. And I didn’t want it to get lost … so … Aden has it right now. He’s Heda until I get back.”Clarke’s eyebrows raised, “You … can do that?”Lexa nodded, “We’ve never done it like this before … But … like you said … the world ended … so … we’ve had to change some things. And … in the past … I was told that … the logic was more political. An ex-commander roaming around would know too much … Be another center of power against the one who holds the flame … So … transfers only after death made more sense. But it’s not like I’m going to raise an army against Aden out here. Or … would ever do that …”Clarke’s eyes got all watery, “That’s the difference? That … this has been … all you? This is you without the flame?”Lexa looked back at her gave a shallow nod. Feeling more than a little self-conscious all of a sudden.Clarke hadn’t really given her much indication that she’d noticed all that much of a difference … and … didn’t seem to have noticed the line of healed stitches on the back of her neck either … even though she’d been absolutely mauling the sides of Lexa’s neck with hickeys for days now …Maybe she just hadn’t known what the stitches meant?And Lexa … kinda … hadn’t really wanted to tell her about taking out the flame …She knew that Clarke loved her … of course … But … there was also a part of her that wondered what percentage of that love came from the fact that she was Heda … a powerful leader.What would Clarke think of her if she knew that Lexa wasn’t Heda right then? That she was in no position to ensure Clarke and Madi’s safety … or order her people to do whatever Clarke wanted them to do?If Clarke knew that she was … just … a person … just another person right now …“I can’t believe it …,” Clarke whispered, looking back at her, “This is you without the flame?”Lexa shifted a little uncomfortably in her seat under Clarke’s weight on her lap.Was this her?This very emotional person she’d been ever since she’d come to the valley?Who had … a lot of … new … and … kinda uncomfortable thoughts and feelings about her life swirling in her head now … about … the things she’d done … and … what she’d been through …“I’m …,” Lexa looked back at her, feeling … kinda … vulnerable, yet another new and uncomfortable emotion, “… probably … still adjusting … to the change. No one has ever taken it out when they were still alive before … So … I don’t really know if … I’m fully myself yet … or … if … with more time …”Clarke just stared back at her for a full minute.And Lexa started feeling even more vulnerable.Clarke sighed, smiling at her.This was all such good news.Not the Lexa having been alone part … for Lexa’s sake anyway …But it was possible that Lexa didn’t have to go back …She had taken out the flame.By choice.Something Clarke would never have imagined that Lexa would have even considered doing before …It was a huge step for Lexa.A step in Clarke’s direction.And even though Clarke truly didn’t want to give a single inch when it came to arguing for Lexa to stay in the valley … Even though she didn’t want to compromise and have Lexa be away from her for any length of time ever again, and definitely didn’t want Lexa to return to the bunker and face the risks to her safety that lived inside those walls … Lexa had made a big compromise already … And Clarke would almost certainly have to make compromises too.Hadn’t that been her whole point?That Lexa should have a choice?A say in what she did with her own life?Clarke trailed her thumb across Lexa’s cheek, looking her in the eye, “I love you … I love this you too. So much. And I’m proud of you for making that choice. Even if … it wasn’t exactly a choice you made for me … It was practical … But … I know taking out the flame would be a really big deal for you.”Lexa nodded, “Not a choice I ever thought I would make. Or even have the option to make. But it was the right choice …”Lexa smiled at her, ran a hand through Clarke’s hair, “And it was partly for you …”Clarke grinned.And then leaned in, leaned their foreheads together and sighed, “I’ll try to be reasonable about all this … you. It might kill me to do it … but … what you do now, it really is your choice … not mine … Even though …”Lexa smiled, “I believe I know your position on the matter.”Clarke leaned in and kissed her, long and slow, and then mumbled, “Do you though?” against Lexa’s lips, “‘Cause I’d be happy to show you …”Lexa grinned, slid her hands under Clarke, stood up and carried her off to bed.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

When Clarke had been recovering in Becca’s compound after the death wave, she’d had a lot of time to explore.45 days in fact.45 days of waiting for her body to heal from the radiation burns … from the damage she’d sustained from being outside the lab just before the death wave hit. 45 days until she’d been well enough to start the trek to the bunker in Polis.She’d made her way out of Becca’s lab after just a week on unsteady legs, when she’d run out of the protein bars she’d found there. Had shuffled past the scorched trees on the island, over to Becca’s mansion.Which was miraculously still standing.Even the windows were still intact. The huge metal panels covering them had lifted away from the glass when Clarke had experimentally flicked at a light switch in Becca’s house, not really expecting anything to happen, and warm sunlight had come streaming into the living room. The windows were … on closer inspection, made of a thick looking glass too. Inches and inches thick. Even the lights, the electricity and plumbing in the house still worked. There must have been a generator somewhere powering the island. Or … maybe solar panels on the roof that were just as protected as the glass windows. The whole building must have had some kind of automatic ‘Oh fuck, the world is ending’ detection system, and a ‘lock everything down’ type self-preservation system.When she’d gotten to the house, Clarke hadn’t known if she would survive all her radiation burns. Every part of her hurt. Even her organs fucking ached. But if she was gonna die, that was gonna happen in Becca’s amazingly comfortable king-sized bed. The softest, most comfortable bed she’d ever had the pleasure of experiencing. The sheets, the buttery soft cotton against her still so tender skin had felt like a small miracle … in that brief moment she’d had to appreciate them before she’d fallen into a dreamless sleep.When she’d woken up, she’d felt a little better. So much better than when she’d been sleeping on the cot in the lab though.She’d made the slow trek back to the lab with shuffling steps, with her weary body, looked up medical information on treating severe radiation burns on the computers there and brought any medical gear that could be useful back with her to the house.And while Clarke was there, in Becca’s house, puttering around in her bandages and burn salves for weeks and weeks, wearing Becca’s bathrobe, eating the food in Becca’s kitchen, she’d had plenty of time to take stock of the house’s contents. Walked from room to room, opening cabinets and storerooms and kitchen pantries, looking through closets, pulling open drawers. Mentally cataloguing everything … for survival purposes … but also just to give her bored and restless mind something to do.The house was so well stocked. It had been miles and miles and a boat ride away from anywhere in the old world. Becca must have stocked the place with everything she and her employees could possibly need. Made the lack of a grocery store on the island irrelevant.And one day, Clarke had stumbled across a little set of drawers in the very back of Becca’s closet that she had somehow missed on her first pass. And the drawers were filled with a … quite impressive … collection … of Becca’s … toys.It had taken Clarke’s mind a little while to understand what she was looking at. She’d never seen anything like this stuff in her life.Tools?She picked up each object, her head cocked to one side, her fingers trying to make sense of the variety of little devices. Lots of … plastic … in a wide array of colors. Mostly a soft kind of plastic that gave a little under the pressure of her wondering fingertips … Objects in a wide variety of non-intuitive shapes. She pushed the button on one little device and it started buzzing and trembling in the palm of her hand.Clarke pushed the button again, but it just buzzed and trembled even more furiously. Started pulsing.Without thinking, she’d pressed the device against one of her sore calf muscles, that had still been aching from her climb up the satellite tower and her breakneck run back to the lab when the death wave had been closing in on her.The vibrations had felt good, but the weird shape of the plastic was kinda lumpy.She kept pressing the little button until the device went quiet and still again, set it down on the carpet, picked up and let her fingers explore the other objects. Her eyes studying them. Trying to make sense of the lines and curves and settings on the devices.When she’d pulled open the next drawer though, everything made sense. Clicked into place in her mind.The variety of silicone objects of various shapes and sizes in that drawer were … far more intuitive. It was perfectly clear what they were meant for. What it all was for.Becca must have been … pretty …experimental in her pleasures … craved … variety to have two drawers so full of such things.Clarke picked up a black harness out of the second drawer. Her fingers exploring the buckles and straps. All the buckles and straps reminded her of all the buckles and straps on Lexa’s leather Heda uniform that her fingers had pulled open countless times. Her eyes had gotten a little teary at the thought of her love.Lexa would be into this.Her fingers slid through the o-ring on the front of the harness.She picked up one of the array of silicone phalluses in the drawer and slid it through the o-ring.Yup.That’s what this was for.She smirked.Humans.They had thought of everything.She’d had a little flash of something in her mind just then … that this stuff was … private … Becca’s intimate stuff.But then she’d shaken her head a little at that thought … and went back to exploring the contents of the drawers freely.Her veins were filled with Becca’s blood after all. Becca’s black blood. Her lover had Becca’s tech in her brain.Her and Becca were way past the “Hi how are you” getting to know each other stage.They were intimately aquatinted.At a molecular level.And there was something about being in Becca’s house … Seeing all her clothes hanging in the closets, seeing the styles and colors she liked, her obvious preference for black and blues … Seeing her socks and underwear all rolled up neatly in the drawers … Seeing her pairs of sensible shoes arranged side by side on the closet floor … Seeing the kind of tea she liked to drink in the kitchen, the kinds of crackers and snacks she liked. The kinds of provisions she kept stocked in those massive pantries and store rooms in her isolated island paradise away from it all …Clarke felt like she knew her.Not totally of course. But Becca was clearly a very organized, very hardworking person, who thought ahead.Just like her.Clarke liked the idea that Becca had brought the tools of her pleasure with her to the island ... and her lovers as well … if the harnesses and phalluses and lacy underwear in some of the drawers were anything to go by …Liked the idea that Becca’s pleasure had been as essential to her as all the food stockpiled in her pantries. As essential to her as all the gear in her lab. That Becca had made a place for her pleasure in the closet of her fortress.Clarke’s pleasure should be essential to her too.And seeing these things.These most intimate things.The tools of Becca’s pleasure.She felt like she knew her even better.Knew that behind all of Becca’s profound brilliance, behind all the tech she had created from the thoughts in her head, behind this incredible house, and the incredible lab, behind all the creation and destruction she’d wrought … She was just … a woman.Like Clarke.A woman who just … like … needed to get off sometimes.They were alike in that respect as well.Their similarities reaching well beyond the black blood in their veins.They had bodies similar enough that Clarke could wear most of her clothes too … when her skin had recovered enough to wear actual clothes. Had similar enough taste that a lot of the underwear in Becca’s drawers were in a style that also appealed to her.Mostly, it was practical black cotton. A huge drawer full of that kind of underwear. Utilitarian. Functional. But in another drawer, there were pairs that were more whimsical, frivolous and playful. Some with little cartoon animals on the fabric. Others lace.As she recovered, Clarke was walking around in the underwear of as close to a god as the world had ever seen. A goddess of creation and destruction. Was sleeping in a goddess’ bed, in the Mount Olympus where Becca had dwelled. Where her ideas had sprung forth and come to life, like Athena from Zeus’ forehead.Clarke had barely been able to take anything at all from Becca’s house when she’d first packed a backpack for her trek to the bunker in Polis. Just what she’d been able to fit in her pack. The bare minimum. What she could carry. Mostly just food and water, the clothes on her back.The water surrounding the island had all but disappeared. It wasn’t an island anymore. It was surrounded by dry land. Which had been … fucking concerning … but convenient for Clarke’s trekking purposes … Since the boat that had once brought her to that island was as long gone as the water that had once surrounded the place.The absence of the water … that had been Clarke’s first clue that the terrain she would be trekking through would be profoundly transformed. Not just scorched trees like the island had. The land itself would be transformed.Clarke hadn’t forgotten about the house after she’d left though, and all of its contents she’d looked through.After she’d found the solar rover where her friends had left it on the other side of where the water had been, after she’d made her way to Polis, after she’d seen that the bunker was buried in rubble and that she couldn’t enter, she’d driven back to Becca’s house. Loaded up on more food and water. Then started exploring what was left of the world.Had found the valley.Had found Madi.Had found the little wild girl perfectly at home and comfortable in that little natural paradise.It had taken a while to get Madi to even talk to her and not just run away at the sight of her.But Clarke had stuck around. Had made a home in the village. And eventually … they had bonded into a little family unit.There was so much bounty in the valley, no reason to leave. Plenty of fresh food and water. So much beauty to heal her weary soul.Madi had refused to leave for even a few days to go on a supply run to Becca’s house.Madi couldn’t care less about what was at Becca’s house.Had looked at Clarke like she was a crazy person when she had suggested the trip.Which, under the circumstances, being surrounded by endless wasteland on all sides, Clarke totally understood.And Madi was kind of afraid of the rover in those early days.Because what the actual fuck even was that thing?Madi sure as hell didn’t trust it.It sounded like a monster.It growled when Clarke turned the key to show her and Madi had jumped out the window and run away.So Clarke had given Madi assurances that she would return, had driven back to Becca’s house and collected as much as the rover could carry. Essentials. Things she’d been missing from her stay at the house. Things that would be useful to her. Bags of flour and salt and food from one of the big storage pantries in the house. Soap. A fuckload of empty notebooks, boxes and boxes of pens and pencils from the lab that she could use for her planning and cataloging of the valley as she prepared for the arrival of Lexa and the bunker people. And … that she could use to … teach Madi things …She took clothes, jackets and shoes from the guest room closets. Took all the pairs of Becca’s gently used hiking boots that she must have worn to hike around the island … back when it had had trees … back when it was an island … back when it was an idyllic vacation fortress. Packed boxes full of candles. Took any stuff she could find that Madi might like too. There wasn’t much in that respect … The entire place, the main building Becca’s house was one part of, the tech lab in the mansion, and the medical lab were very clearly for adult matters … was very clearly the domain of an adult with zero time for such trivial matters as procreation. But there were some toys on Becca’s desk in the lab. A little shiny metal spiny thing that little hands might like to play with. Boxes of highlighters and markers that little hands might like to use to draw colorful pictures in some of the notebooks that Clarke had packed into the rover.And before she’d left, Clarke had wandered up to Becca’s bedroom, pulled pillows and those awesome sheets off the bed, and off one of the guest beds in the house too. Soft sheets that she and Madi would be able to sleep on, instead of just the thick blankets in the village’s houses. She’d be able to wash the sheets more easily and they would dry far more quickly than the thick blankets that Madi’s people had … left … for them … in their … now empty houses …Clarke couldn’t give Madi her people back … her parents … her friends … But she could give her this. The best place to sleep that she was capable of providing for the girl … for … her girl … her little natblida … as Clarke had already started referring to her in her mind by then … only a few months into knowing her.She would give her whatever she could.And she would give her this … would give her little natblida the softest sheets to sleep on … The softest pillows to dream on …She’d considered bringing a mattress for her too, but every mattress in the place, in all of the guest rooms too were far too big.She’d have to tie them to the roof of the rover, which might mess up its solar panels, which she couldn’t afford to do.She could have taken the simple cot in Becca’s lab, but it was far less comfortable than the beds in the village.Just the sheets and pillows would have to do.And when she’d been in Becca’s bedroom to take the sheets, she’d remembered those two drawers … those two drawers for pleasure …She was blushing when she opened the drawers that time.Because she wasn’t just observing the tools of someone else’s pleasure. She was … choosing … for her own pleasure.Her own pleasure … Something she honestly hadn’t given all that much thought to during her mostly very austere and struggling-to-survive life up to that point …With the exception of the time she’d spent with Lexa …Their time together hadn’t been entirely worry-free and peaceful either, the time they’d had together before praimfaya … But there had been so many tender moments of peace with Lexa … so many moments of exquisite pleasure … moments of pleasure that went so deep … that made her whole body purr, that made her brain purr with satisfaction.She’d have that again someday.Sitting in front of those drawers, just a few months into her first year surviving in a post-apocalyptic world, still raw from seeing all the devastation she’d trekked and driven through, seeing the bunker covered in rubble, she’d needed to believe that her love would return to her.Because her pleasure was essential too.She’d needed to believe that Lexa would make it out of the bunker, survive the risks of being locked in an underground prison with 1,199 people who knew how to kill, and who would demand so much of their leader in those conditions.Needed to believe that her extreme good fortune, her good luck in finding the valley, in finding a little village home, in finding a little wild creature there who was so much like Lexa, would extend to Lexa as well.That Lexa would find a way back to her.That they would have the peace and pleasure they had once given each other again someday.So Clarke had sifted through the drawers, looking for tools for their pleasure.She honestly didn’t need much for herself.Her hands and memories and imagination were more than satisfactory.But …Lexa would like the harness. It was black, covered in straps and buckles, like just everything she’d ever seen Lexa wear … everything she’d ever seen her wear outside anyway.It practically screamed Lexa. Just as much as it would have if Lexa’s name was written on it.She’d looked through the drawer full of strap-ons that could go with it.Found a few she liked the size and feel and feel of. Saw the little pile of paper instructions neatly stacked in the back corner of the drawer that must have come with each one, that explained how to clean and maintain them.Becca was so organized.Even in this.Clarke just had to boil them after use. That was easy enough to do.She’d packed the harness and the attachments she’d picked out into the completely full rover with everything else.Bringing the tools for their pleasure to the valley had felt … like an act of hope. Optimistic. The kind of optimism that didn’t come naturally to her.But it felt good to have brought them.She’d hidden the harness and its attachments in her bedroom when she’d gotten home.So Madi wouldn’t find them and think that they were toys to play with … even though … they were toys … to … play with …But they were Lexa’s toys.Clarke didn’t even play with them … much … just … a little … you know … so … she’d know how … when the time came … for Lexa to … play with them … and … her …So she’d know how to put the harness on Lexa. How to … affix the thick velcro of the waist-belt around Lexa’s hips and … tighten the straps around Lexa’s strong thighs … so Lexa would have … good angles … to … work with … and … so it was very … secure … when Lexa was ….… playing with her … and … taking her pleasure … from her … in Clarke’s bed … in the house Clarke had claimed for Lexa … and would … give to her … As like … a wedding present … as like a … it’s you and me in this bed fucking each other forever present …Honestly, just the thought of all that had filled Clarke’s head with so many enticing visions … countless times … had been fantasy fuel for her slick fingers to work with so often in the time she’d been waiting for Lexa …And then Lexa had actually shown up in the valley …Had wanted to take a dip in the lake after she’d arrived … And Clarke had watched Lexa step out of the water after her bath … had watched more and more of Lexa’s tan muscly body appear as the waterline slid further and further down her body with each step Lexa took into the shallows and out onto the shore.And fucking all Clarke could think about in that moment was how fucking good Lexa would look in that harness. How the straps would look arching around Lexa’s strong thighs ...God … What Lexa could do to her with those thighs … And … with her lower back muscles … that were … so strong …With all those muscles that had already done so many wonderful things to her … that were so strong and … moved so … fluidly … in that … rolling rhythm …But then Clarke had kinda chickened out.Lexa was there, with her, in the valley.Finally.Had been there for just over two weeks.And they’d been fucking each other’s brains out.So many times.And Clarke wanted so desperately to show Lexa what she’d brought for her.To surprise her.But … not to like … shock her …Because what would Lexa’s Grounder brain even think of it?She knew Lexa would be into the harness. Of that she was certain.But like … the attachment?Would it just look like … a body part to her?Kinda … grotesque?Like Clarke handing her an ear or something?And she sure as fuck didn’t want to offend Lexa.Didn’t want Lexa to think that her perfect mouth and her gift from god hands and every other part of her weren’t enough … because they most certainly were … so good … so so good … So fucking good …But … the toy would be … fun … to play with …So a little over two weeks into Lexa’s time in the valley, Clarke told herself that she was being ridiculous.She was a grown ass woman who had survived an apocalypse.She could fucking show her … basically wife … or like … future wife … a sex toy.She just needed to stop being such a goddamn coward.So she made a really nice meal for her family for dinner.Her best recipe.Something she knew Lexa would like.Had used the campfire to heat up water from the rainwater tanks and poured Lexa a hot bath in the big metal tub later that night.Got in the tub with her and gave her a bath, ran her hands slowly, appreciatively across Lexa’s skin, down Lexa’s neck, across Lexa’s soft parts and rolling muscles as she bathed her … As she only bathed her. Teased Lexa’s perfect mouth, barely giving her any kisses, getting close and then pulling away at the last second, teasing her soft touches across Lexa’s skin. Letting the grin on her face do all the talking.She let Lexa clean her too.But again, no fooling around.Just … letting Lexa run her strong hands all over her body … everywhere … but only allowing Lexa to actually clean her … watching Lexa’s forehead furrow in frustration when Clarke told her “No” and “Later” … whenever Lexa’s hands started to feel too good. Watched that furrow in Lexa’s forehead get deeper and deeper as the minutes of Lexa’s strong hands moving lovingly but respectfully across her skin passed.Until Lexa finished her job and sloshed out of the tub, all huffy.Toweled herself off briskly and handed Clarke her towel.Folded her arms over her naked chest and looked away.So clearly and so adorably sexually frustrated.Clarke was certain she’d never told Lexa ‘No’ before … Because why would she ever? That would be madness.But there was a method to Clarke’s madness that night.She wanted Lexa to see the toy and instantly grasp its … potential … when she showed it to her.Clarke wrapped her towel around herself to cover her nakedness, which Lexa also didn’t look too happy about, and picked up the little candle by the tub.Lexa didn’t bother putting on a towel.Clarke took her hand and started leading her back to their bedroom.“Perhaps I will just sleep tonight …” Lexa grumbled pettily as they walked, “Go directly to sleep …”Clarke couldn’t help but chuckle at her.When had that ever happened?“You can … if you’re too tired …,” Clarke smirked at her.Lexa snorted indignantly.When was she ever too tired?“Perhaps you don’t deserve pleasure from me …,” Lexa mumbled as she shut their bedroom door.Clarke chuckled again as she used her candle to light the other little candles she’d set up around their bedroom.Lexa couldn’t let it go.Wanted to make sure that Clarke understood that she was not too tired, but was choosing not to love her, because she was annoyed at Clarke for torturing her.“You’re right …,” Clarke grinned at her, and then let her towel drop to the floor so Lexa could see her fully naked in the warm candlelight, “I don’t deserve you.”Lexa’s green eyes locked with hers, and then slowly trailed down Clarke’s naked body, over her soft curves and hard nipples and rolling muscles and tan skin.Lexa’s eyes flicked up to meet hers again.Her jaw started working silently.“So …” Clarke grinned at her, “I guess we’ll just sleep then? Since you don’t wanna see what I have for you …”Lexa’s jaw clenched.Clarke raised an eyebrow playfully, “Unless … you wanna see?”Lexa folded her arms and looked away, realizing that she’d been too distracted by her sexual frustration to notice that Clarke had been leading her into a trap … but at least they’d established that Clarke was not worthy of her love.“Maybe,” Lexa huffed.Clarke stepped in close to her, so her hard nipples just barely grazed against Lexa’s folded arms, and raised an eyebrow, “Maybe?”Lexa gave an almost imperceptible little nod, still not looking at her, but leaned just the teeniest bit forward against Clarke’s chest.Clarke reached up and undid Lexa’s folded arms so the were down by her sides, stepped in very close, fully pressing her breasts against Lexa’s warm chest, put her hands on Lexa’s muscly sides, started kissing under Lexa’s jaw, and then whispered, her voice all low and husky, “What I have for you … it’s … a tool … from Becca’s house … that you can use …,” she pressed more kisses under Lexa’s jaw, teased her tongue against it, “… to fuck me.”Lexa’s stance shifted a little.She cleared her throat, still looking away, and said quietly, “What kind of tool.”Clarke grinned, knowing that she’d already won.Lexa was all about tools. She was very crafty. Weapons were basically tools too, and Lexa was very into those as well.Clarke reached up and ran her hands down the sides of Lexa’s neck, trailed them down Lexa’s chest, down her soft breasts, down her muscly stomach, enjoying the feel of Lexa’s warmth under her hands.Her hands slid further down to Lexa’s hips, started slowly circling around them, “It goes here …,” Clarke said huskily, and then slid her hands further down and rubbed them slowly along Lexa’s inner thighs, “And here …” She slid her hand in between Lexa’s thighs and pressed in, massaging a little, “And here …”And honestly, Clarke started to feel pretty bad about teasing Lexa earlier, because Lexa was fucking soaked, felt so warm and soft and completely fucking delicious against her massaging hand.Lexa stepped her feet a little further apart to make a little more room for Clarke’s hand between her thighs, still not looking at her.“It’s like a belt …,” Clarke added huskily, her hand still massaging between Lexa’s thighs to give the poor woman some relief, “A harness … You wear it … around your hips … and thighs … while you’re fucking me … It has a part … that you put inside me … that you fuck me with.”Lexa lifted her chin a little.She’d been looking away the entire time Clarke had been talking to her about this, the entire time that Clarke’s had been massaging between her soaked thighs too, but even from just the one side of Lexa’s face that Clarke could see in the candlelight, she could tell that Lexa was definitely interested.“You’ll feel it here …,” Clarke added, rubbing her hand a little more firmly between Lexa’s thighs, giving her a little more pressure, “You wanna see it?”Lexa pretended to be thinking it over as she looked away, and then said, “I will see this tool.”Clarke grinned.She walked over to the little spot where she kept it, came back with the harness in her hand, the strap-on already loaded into it … ready to go.And honestly, Clarke was fucking ready to go too.Giving Lexa a bath had been … engrossing … Every part of Lexa was so painfully appealing it was ridiculous.And Lexa being all huffy and stubborn like this was actually really working for her too.She handed the harness over to Lexa, watched her turn it around slowly in her hands, watched her eyes and fingers figuring it all out, the straps and buckles.“I can put it on you …,” Clarke said as nonchalantly as she possibly could, which was a challenge given how totally into that idea she was.Lexa’s green eyes flicked up at her, “Yes.”Clarke grinned again.Her mission had been a success.She took the harness from Lexa’s hands, got down on her knees in front of her and started pressing soft, slow kisses across Lexa’s thighs, started licking against her inner thighs a little, fucking reveling in the taste of Lexa on her tongue.She untangled the harness straps and held it out so Lexa could step into it, slid it up Lexa’s muscly thighs, affixed the velcro belt around her hips, started pressing soft little kisses against Lexa’s thighs as her hands worked at tightening all the little straps, so everything fit snugly, securely.She leaned back a little to inspect her work and … yeah … fuck … this looked like … a lotta fun …She could already feel warm slick running down her own thighs … The bath … all the teasing … Lexa being all huffy and indignant and proud … talking to her about it … Clarke had played herself really …And now, Lexa was standing before her, all tan and muscly and fucking gorgeous in the candlelight with these black straps arching around her strong thighs, with the strap-on standing at attention, just waiting there to rock her world …Clarke cleared her throat a little to pull herself together, and Lexa reached down a hand to help her to her feet.And then Lexa slid a hand over the back of her neck and pulled Clarke into the kind of kiss that she’d clearly been just dying to give her all night, all tender and hot and tongue rolling against Clarke’s. And she just kept fucking kissing her until Clarke was just about to die of need, until Clarke was moaning so loudly into Lexa’s kisses and gripping Lexa’s hips so hard it was just fucking embarrassing. Until Clarke’s walls were fluttering and squeezing and aching so bad that she could barely think.“Do you wanna …,” Clarke panted against her lips.“Yes,” Lexa said, said it with like, purpose behind it.Clarke spun around, took quick steps and jumped into bed, turned over just a second before Lexa pounced on top of her. And oh … the soft crush of Lexa’s weight on top of her, pinning her to the bed, the rolling of her tongue in Clarke’s mouth as she shattered whatever was left of Clarke’s sanity. Lexa started kissing and nibbling her way down the side of Clarke’s neck while Clarke’s thighs just fucking squirmed with need against the sheets.Lexa’s strong hand slid down Clarke’s stomach, started massaging between her thighs, pressing into the absolute flood of slick waiting there for her.Clarke was panting and moaning as Lexa kissed and licked her way across her chest, as Lexa’s sucked her hard nipples, as the palm of Lexa’s hand rubbed against her soft folds, putting the exact right amount of pressure over her clit.Clarke’s hips started bucking and squirming impatiently, and Lexa slid two fingers inside her all at once, started pumping into her in a little rhythm, the tips of her fingers rubbing against the super sensitive little spot inside with every pump, and in seconds, Clarke was screaming as she came, her walls clenching and shuddering in fast waves, squeezing and rolling so fucking hard around Lexa’s fingers from her own pent up sexual frustration that night.Lexa’s hips shifted a little between Clarke’s open thighs and she slipped her fingers out, and Clarke felt the soft head of the strap-on press against her soaked entrance to take their place.Lexa’s green eyes flicked up to meet hers, and Clarke’s hands gripped the sheets, heavy panting breaths still rolling through her chest, her skin sparkling with sweat in the candlelight, her heart still pounding in her chest from her climax.She gave Lexa a nod.And then Lexa started to slowly sink her hips in, the thickness spreading Clarke’s still shuddering walls so fucking wide. Lexa’s hand wrapped around the back of Clarke’s thigh, gripping as her hips sank the rest of the way in, until Lexa was all the fucking way inside her, her warm chest pressed against Clarke’s. Clarke’s walls were rolling and clenching greedily around the length, but Lexa stayed still, leaning into her, propped up on her knees a little between Clarke’s open thighs.Clarke grabbed the back of Lexa’s neck and pulled her into a bruising kiss, her tongue rolling against Lexa’s, her hips bucking a little under Lexa’s weight in invitation.Lexa’s hips started to shift, just a little, just a bit at first, getting used to the feeling, the angle, as Clarke’s walls clenched and squirmed so fucking impatiently. As Clarke mind went all fuzzy as she panted … waiting, while Lexa figured this out.Lexa looked up at her again. That look that was the question.And Clarke panted out, “Yes … god yes … just-”Clarke never got to finish that sentence though, because Lexa’s hips started rolling in, and in seconds, Clarke was panting and sweating and desperately crying out to any god that existed. Lexa’s hips found their perfect rhythm, and god … that rhythm … that fluid rolling rhythm of Lexa’s hips pumping into her over and over again, that primal, animal rhythm … Clarke’s mind reeled. Her arms and legs wrapped tight around Lexa as her rolling hips pumped into her over and over again like she’d been born for this, like this was her sole fucking purpose in life, the muscles in Lexa’s back shifting and flexing under Clarke’s hands as she gripped, holding on for dear life.Clarke’s thighs were fucking trembling, and Lexa’s hand squeezed her breast, and then the rolling rhythm of Lexa’s hips sped up a little, started pumping into her harder, faster. And Clarke came so hard she almost blacked out for a second there, her own hoarse cries filling her ears, her muscles twitching and fluttering under the soft crush of Lexa’s weight, her thighs jerking, walls clenching and shuddering and squeezing down so goddamn hard around the length.Lexa kept up her rolling rhythm, pumping in deeper, fucking claiming Clarke’s pussy as her own. Clarke could hear Lexa growling by her ear as her hips pumped into her over and over again … and god … those growls … those little growls that said ‘mine’ more effectively than even that word ever could.“Again …,” Lexa growled in her ear, rolling her hips in a little harder, a little faster, and the second the meaning clicked into place in Clarke’s brain she was coming again, her back arching up off the bed into Lexa’s weight, her head thrown back, her thighs bucking and jerking as Lexa’s rolling hips pumped in in a determined rhythm. Lexa let out a groan, the rolling rhythm of her hips faltering a little, and then she started pumping in with slow, deep, determined pumps, pumping in so fucking deep, and Clarke just lay there, moaning, watching purple glitter sparkle behind her eyelids, her whole body shuddering with pleasure, until Lexa’s hips slowed to a stop, until the wild clenching and rolling and shuddering of her walls started to slow.Lexa was panting and breathless and sweaty on top of her.And Clarke squeezed her arms around her, her heart fucking glowing in her chest, her brain, her body feeling all melty and good, fucking purring with satisfaction.After Lexa’s breaths evened out, she leaned up a little and looked at her, “Is it … ok?”Clarke’s forehead furrowed.She didn’t understand the question.“Is what okay?” Clarke looked back at her.Lexa’s eyebrows raised, “Are you … okay?”Clarke grinned at her, “Of course I’m okay. I’m fucking great.”Lexa grinned proudly.“Are you okay?” Clarke smiled up at her and ran her fingers through Lexa’s hair.Lexa looked at her for a moment, then said, “Yes. I am very ok. This is … a good tool. Mochof.”And then Clarke was the one grinning proudly.She pulled Lexa back down on top of her and nuzzled her nose into the crook of her neck, perfectly content in the feeling of Lexa’s warmth on top of her.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Three weeks had passed, three blissful weeks in the valleyLexa would go back to the bunker.Eventually.That was just a given.She needed to go back and give her report about the valley to Aden ... or … rather … take back the flame from him and report it to the commanders in her head.Honestly, the more time Lexa spent in the valley with Clarke and Madi, the more profoundly difficult that idea was becoming.Clarke certainly wasn’t making it any easier.She’d promised not to hassle Lexa too much about staying … well … she’d promised to try not to.And surprisingly, she hadn’t brought it up again.But all the reasons to stay spoke for themselves.The valley was a paradise. Clarke was her love. Spending time with Madi, teaching her things gave Lexa so much happiness.Even just hiking around the valley learning things, fixing things in their house, building things and gardening were such a pleasure.So much more of a pleasure than settling petty squabbles in the bunker, dealing with the grumbling and demands of the clan council, where every day underground was exactly the same - except for whatever the council chose to complain about that day. Even their complaints weren’t new though. The council just cycled through the same few dozen complaints over and over again, even though they knew what Lexa’s answers would be. Even though they knew all the policies and rules and the reasons behind each of them. She’d explained the rationales to them over and over again. Countless times. They’d offered no better solutions, but still continued to grumble over the same matters nonetheless.Even setting up the goddamn beehive boxes with a hive that she’d found in one of the trees had been a pleasure compared to that.She’d gotten stung … a bunch … Even though she’d gotten everything ready in advance. All she’d had to do was climb back down the tree, pop the hive into the wooden box waiting at the base of it, then hurry back to the place a little ways away from the village … where the beehive would be placed in an even bigger set of boxes that the villagers had set up to keep a bee colony for honey. Even that had been a satisfying task … even though she’d had to cover every inch of her skin with the thickest clothes she could find, and had still gotten stung a bunch anyway.Clarke had been livid.Furious at her for doing that.But as the colony grew, Clarke would be able to use the wax for candles.And Madi would love the honey.And someday, Madi would have honey from the hive … whenever Clarke decided that Madi was no longer “absolutely fucking forbidden from going anywhere near the goddamn bees” to get the honey.Lexa had been secretly making a notebook for Madi about how to care for the bees that she would give her before she left though.Honestly, Lexa wasn’t even sure how she knew all this stuff about bees and beekeeping … it must have been leftover information in her head from the flame.Perhaps she’d seen a beehive once and wondered about it, or maybe she’d been stung by a bee, and then the flame had filled her mind with hundreds of facts about bees, imparted to her that bees were absolutely essential for some reason.Lexa couldn’t remember why they were essential … But if they were, then Clarke and Madi should have some.And there were plenty of wild bee hives in the valley what with all the fields of flowers for them to harvest from.Clarke and Madi would have to take good care of the bees though. Make sure the bees always had water close to their hive. That the boxes stayed in good condition. Make sure the flowers they liked, that surrounded the place the bee-boxes were, stayed healthy … So that the bees could easily gather the pollen from those flowers without having to fly far away.The bees would be like their pets … their extremely annoyed pets that never wanted to be touched … but that would share the fruits of their labor with their little family in exchange for the shelter and care they provided.How Clarke had glared at Lexa as she’d been tending to all the puffy stings on Lexa’s skin at their dinner table though.Fucking glared at her.Lexa knew she shouldn’t grin at Clarke as she glared.But …She really couldn’t help it.When had anyone ever cared that she’d gotten injuries as minor as a few bee stings before?Ok … a lot of bee stings … a dozen maybe … and they did fucking sting …But having Clarke make such a fuss over her little injuries made Lexa’s heart just flutter in her chest.Clarke loved her so much.And when Lexa had been explaining why she’d done it as Clarke had tended to the stings, that she had set up the beehive so that Clarke could have more candles … so that Madi could have honey because she loved sweets things so much … she could see that Clarke thought Lexa doing that for them was hot … brave and hot …Clarke had a thing for her fixing things up around the house too.Clarke had a … preference for it? No … Clarke had a … fetish for it … for Lexa providing for them.Lexa wasn’t sure how that word had gotten stuck in her head … But she’d heard Bekka say it in her mind sometimes when she’d been looking at herself in the mirror as she tightened the buckles on her leather Heda uniform, back when she’d had the flame.Lexa didn’t remember the exact meaning of the word, but she knew there was something sexual about it. And the way Clarke looked at her as she did her little domestic duties around their house was definitely sexual.She’d punished Lexa for setting up the bee boxes though.Had laid in bed beside Lexa for a few nights after that, breathily moaning as she pleasured herself, refusing to let Lexa help, saying that Lexa was too hurt from all her bee stings to help …Even though Lexa was perfectly capable of pleasuring Clarke … Even if the bees had chewed one of her arms clean off … even if the bees had paralyzed her from the neck down she was more than capable of pleasuring Clarke … But Lexa just watched with sad puppy dog eyes, dying a thousand silent deaths.Clarke could be cruel sometimes.But her revenge had been short-lived.Clarke could not resist her for long.On the third night she’d let Lexa kiss her while she pleasured herself. And then let Lexa suck her nipples as she pleasured herself.Then Clarke broke and went down on Lexa for hours.Which Lexa felt quite smug about, but she tried not to let it show … lest Clarke take her revenge again.By the fourth day, they were back to normal.Clarke was on her elbows and knees on their bed and Lexa was wearing the harness again, using their new tool to pleasure Clarke from behind. Which Lexa found extremely pleasing.And Clarke seemed to be absolutely losing her mind over.Lexa liked the satisfying slaps of her thighs against Clarke’s ass as she rolled her hips into Clarke over and over again, liked the feeling of Clarke’s muscles trembling and flexing under her hands as she gripped Clarke’s hips, liked the sounds of Clarke moaning and crying out her name over and over again.It was all very satisfying.She liked how Clarke could kinda slump forward with her hips up in the air a little and Lexa could basically lay on top of her, her chest against Clarke’s sweaty back, her teeth gripping Clarke’s shoulder as her hips rolled in over and over again, taking everything she wanted while Clarke was crying out and moaning and begging and coming undone under her.When they’d finally collapsed onto the sheets, all sweaty and breathless and dazed, Lexa had pulled off the harness and Clarke deliriously panted out something about wanting Lexa to get her pregnant.Lexa looked over at her from her pillow, still panting, and smiled out, “You already have … a youngen of mine … One of them … anyway.”Clarke turned her head on the pillow to face her and panted, “It’s … kinda crazy … I know … It’s just … hot … The idea … of you getting me pregnant ...”Lexa raised an eyebrow, because that was a very hot idea.“I mean … I’m glad we can’t … actually do it …,” Clarke still kinda half panted, her breaths evening out, “Giving birth out here … with no doctor … even with one would be so dangerous … for me and them.”Lexa nodded.She knew childbirth was very dangerous for mothers even under the best circumstances … and the radioactive world they were living in was definitely not the best circumstances.She would never want Clarke to be in danger like that. Was glad they couldn’t get each other pregnant.But also … in Lexa’s mind, she already did have more kids … Eight of them … The natblidas in the bunker.The natblidas were her kids though … not Clarke’s.Not kids they had made together. Not children raised by Clarke. Not children so much like the two of them as Madi.Lexa hadn’t spoken to Clarke about the natblidas at all really, since Clarke was so sensitive about the topic of natblidas … or more specifically, was so sensitive about the responsibilities that came with being a natblida, which Clarke did not approve of.Lexa couldn’t help but think of them often though, especially when she was with Madi.Couldn’t help but think about what their little measured smiles would look like when they saw the valley, how much they would love being there with them, playing with her and Madi. Learning about the place.And the more she hung out with Madi, the more she realized what a normal childhood actually looked like, the hundreds of little pleasures and fun that a normal childhood entailed … that all the natblidas had been denied for generations … Lexa included.The natblidas had each other at least. Friends. Other natblidas they could hang out with and take classes with and get comfort from. That was something Madi didn’t have.And that was such a shame, as Madi certainly deserved to have that part of a normal childhood as well.Having other natblidas around had been the only normal thing about Lexa’s childhood, and it had been such a comfort … until she’d lost her friends in the conclave.Madi had lost her friends too … the other kids in the village who hadn’t survived the radiation.Madi rarely talked about the people who had lived in her village, which both Lexa and Clarke understood. Some things were too hard to talk about.‘Madi’ wasn’t even Madi’s real name. But her real name had a lot of memories associated with it … her parents … her friends … the people she’d lost in her village had called her by her real name. She’d asked Clarke for a new name a little while after they’d met, and Clarke had given her lots of options. She’d chosen ‘Madi’ for herself. Liked the sound of it.Lexa could understand the name thing too.What people called you could carry a lot of meaning.Very few people called her ‘Lexa’ … to her face anyway ... Calling her that implied intimacy, closeness. And very few people were close to her like that. Clarke called her Lexa. The natblidas did on occasion. Her mentor Anya had called her Lexa too. Costia had … But mostly, everyone called her ‘Heda’.Called her by her job title.Because that was who she was to them.And being called Heda created a distance between her and everyone else. Calling her that was a reminder to that person they were speaking to someone with supreme authority. Someone who could order their death on a whim if she wished. And being called that was a reminder to her that she had that power over them, was responsibile for them. That their lives were in her hands.The natblidas fared a little better though. They weren’t Hedas yet. Were called by their names. They still appeared to be children. And though they were treated with respect by everyone in the bunker, the people in the bunker couldn’t help but be a little softer with the natblidas, kinder, smile at them more.The natblidas were not normal children though. They’d all been pulled away from their parents at a very young age, if not just after birth, and that changed a person in a deep way. Even the littlest ones. And the older ones had spent years training to kill each other in the conclave, and had been affected by that. Even Aden. He was deeply kind, but as the oldest among them, he had spent the most time under that system, preparing for the conclave, and it had put a considerable amount of steel in his veins as well.Very few children, no children in fact, in all the 12 clans had had as much intensive schooling as the natblidas did … learned to read as young as them, started training to fight as soon as they could walk and hold a weapon in their small hands, or studied the kinds of topics the natblidas did under the fleimkepas’ tutelage that prepared them to be Heda.Lexa knew that even in the valley, her natblidas would be measured, restrained. Would not overtly show their joy over the place. They had all been taught to manage their emotions.Lexa was pretty sure they would like Madi, but Madi was very different from them. Had grown up wild and free in nature.Had a mom like Clarke who raised her with so much love and taught her normal subjects and gave her room to play and be a youngen.For the natblidas, living in the bunker hadn’t been all that different from the life they’d known before … They’d spent the vast majority of their lives prior to the bunker living in the tower, learning, training.They had never wanted for food, had always had a roof over there heads, but they’d never gotten to be totally free either, never got to totally escape the confines of that roof.They’d adapted to bunker life well. Easily. Much more easily than the other people who had come to the bunker. Who had lived free.Madi would probably find the other natblidas a little strange. Older than their actual ages. Serious. The ones who were Madi’s age and older anyway. If Madi had been in the bunker, she’d have been old enough to be one of Lexa’s little lieutenants, and would have had the responsibility of keeping an eye on some aspect of the bunker, one of the work stations perhaps, like the farm, or the mess hall. Would be at the side of one of the supervisors learning how that aspect of the bunker worked.Lexa suspected that Madi might actually like having such a role, would take pride in those responsibilities and the respect she would receive. But she would be bored by a lot of it too. Would miss running around in the woods, being wild.And of course, if Lexa ever tried to bring Madi to the bunker, Clarke would murder her.Clarke had made that clear.Not that Lexa wanted to bring Madi there.Madi belonged in her village … surrounded by the beauty of nature, enjoying the sunshine, eating good food, living her life free from concrete walls and cold artificial light. She was essentially the Heda of Louwoda Kliron Kru now. The people in the bunker from this valley had the ‘Kru’, but they did not have the ‘Louwoda Kliron’, the Shallow Valley. And what even was a kru without a place to call home?When the people from the bunker came to the ground, Lexa would do what she could to ensure that Madi was treated with the respect she deserved as the keeper of this place, as the one who had invited Clarke into her home and shared the valley with her, as the one who was offering her village to the people of the bunker.She would also make the case that Madi was too far behind the other natblidas to be a candidate to take the flame. She was so many years behind the rest of them. Even with Clarke’s schooling, her education was not that of a future Heda.And there were many other natblidas who could take on the responsibility of being Heda instead of her.She wondered how Clarke would feel about her devoting her attention to the other natblidas when they arrived … They would be 3 years older by then … some would not need quite so much from her …“Lex?” Clarke asked, watching her from the pillow beside her.“Yes,” Lexa sighed, and then turned on the pillow to face her.Clarke ran her fingers through Lexa’s hair, “You kinda spaced out there … For like … 10 minutes …”Lexa nodded silently.“What is it …,” Clarke asked, scratching her fingers against Lexa’s scalp a little.Lexa just looked back at her.“You can tell me …,” Clarke smiled.Lexa pressed her lips together.“Come on …,” Clarke chuckled, and then leaned forward and kissed her, gave her a soft smile, “We’ve been doing so good … Being so honest with each other … Ever since you’ve been here. Even when you’re … you know … telling me you’re mad at me … or … complaining about how I use too many candles or whatever … That’s … good. You never used to complain or say that kinda stuff. And that’s how we should be with each other. Honest. Talk about how we’re feeling.”Lexa nodded a little, and then started, “The other natblidas … They are … like my youngens too.”Clarke nodded, ran her fingers through Lexa’s hair again, just waiting to hear what Lexa had to say.“Madi …,” Lexa looked back at her, “She …has my spirit … but the other natblidas … I have known all of them all since they were small. Not … as the fleimkepas do … Not as the one responsible for all of their learning … but … for some of it.”Clarke waited patiently, still running her fingers through Lexa’s hair.“I am … like a mentor to them … and … more …,” Lexa looked at her, “Their other teacha tries to shape them into leaders, I see what’s there to be shaped.”Clarke smiled at her, “That’s a good job for you.”Lexa gave a little nod, “Gaia and I … we are the closest thing to parents that they have ever known. And … Gaia … she is good … and kind … teaches them well … but … she is still new to many of them. And … she doesn’t know what it feels like to be a natblida … The responsibility …”Clarke nodded, not loving the idea of those kids having to deal with that, but trying not to show it.“I have a responsibility to them too …,” Lexa added.“I get that …,” Clarke said quietly. And then she thought for a minute, “They’ll always have a place here. In our house.”Lexa smiled at her softly.“Will they be allowed to have families of their own? When they’re ready?” Clarke asked, “Or … are they supposed to live without that … Only have each other as family?”Lexa chewed at her lip a little. She … hadn’t really thought about that. Past Hedas hadn’t even had their class of natblidas with them to be their family … They were all dead from the conclave by then, leaving the Heda alone after they’d ascended.And technically, Hedas were supposed to be alone their whole lives … no families or partners … Not that Lexa had ever been able to follow that rule … Having occasional guests in her bed had been one of the first rules she’d broken as Heda … one of the few rules she had ever broken. And then she’d broken it even further by having real relationships … with Costia, and then Clarke.And now … well … now she’d shattered that rule utterly with her love for Clarke and Madi.Lexa looked at her, “I … don’t know.”Clarke grinned, “So like … if someone wanted to marry you … officially … or …even unofficially … Be your houman … because emo hod yu in …”
Because they love you.
Lexa blushed and looked up at the ceiling.Clarke had never offered this before. Even though they loved each other … knew that they loved each other.Clarke smiled at the blush on Lexa’s cheek and added softly, “And … she ste raisin’ bilaik strik natblida … Gaf in gon fis op seingeda kom yu …”
She is raising your little nightblood …

Wants to have a family with you …
Lexa started blinking furiously up at the ceiling, trying to keep the tears at bay. She pulled the sheet all the way up to the top of her chest ... kinda … gripping it.Clarke reached over and brushed her fingers gently against Lexa’s cheek and Lexa turned to face her.Clarke sighed, smiling at her, “It was you doing the bee thing too. Gotta marry you for that.”Lexa grinned at her, then leaned over and kissed her. And then crawled on top of her and nuzzled into her neck.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

On the first day of Lexa’s last week in the valley, Clarke gave Madi the day off from school. Sent her off to play with her slingshot in the wilderness so she and Lexa could talk.They sat down at the table in their house, mugs of the tea Lexa had invented in their hands.Clarke already looked despondent. Like her mind was far away. Tried not to look at Lexa too much so she wouldn’t start crying. Looked at the mug, at the table, at the morning light coming in through the dusty window.The price of her denial that Lexa would return to the bunker was now due for payment.Because Lexa was going back to the bunker. For how long they didn’t know. A month? Six months? A year? 3 years? It was anyone’s guess. Whatever the flame demanded most likely. But they needed to have this talk. Discuss practicalities.There were a lot of things that went without saying though ... That Clarke desperately wanted Lexa to stay, could hardly stand the idea of being away from her again. That Lexa did not want to leave either … Did not want to leave this perfect place where her little family lived. Did not want to leave her houman and youngen.Lexa hadn’t actually said ‘Yes’ to Clarke’s proposal, not out loud anyway.But that went without saying too.“Madi … she is the keeper of the valley …,” Lexa began gently, “The terms of sharing the valley with those in the bunker are hers to set.”Clarke turned to face her. This was it. The beginning of it all … The politics. The way her life with Madi in the valley was about to change.Clarke sighed. One sentence in and she was already tired of this conversation.She looked away, “Like they won’t come and take it regardless?”Lexa shook her head, “It doesn’t have to be like that. She is the legitimate owner. Has occupied this village for over 2 years. Those from here, who live in the bunker, they abandoned it …,” Lexa continued, “And if her right to this place is not respected, how can those who come here trust that whatever they build, whatever they have won’t be taken by force as well?”“Whose to say it won’t be?” Clarke looked back at her.She had so little faith in humanity.Lexa shook her head again, “We must have order. Laws. That is the foundation for everything else. Good for that to start from the very beginning.”Clarke sighed again. It was a nice idea that Lexa was proposing … even if it was … optimistic … wildly optimistic …“Madi is 10 … ish,” Clarke looked back at her, “She’s … not really prepared to negotiate a treaty.”Lexa smiled, “But you are. As her ambassador.”Clarke looked away again.She hadn’t been an ambassador in a long time. A lifetime ago it felt like …But it was appropriate.She was Madi’s guardian. A keeper of the valley too. Their protector.“What do the bunker people have to offer?” Clarke looked back at her.Besides drama and destruction, but Clarke didn’t say that part out loud.“You have homes … resources … all the resources …,” Lexa answered, “We have our labor. Farmers. Craftsmen. Hunters. Our ideas. Skykru’s ingenuity. We can bring things of use from the bunker as well.”Lexa smiled at her softly, “Friends for Madi.”Clarke gave her a little smile.It was a good thing that Madi wasn’t negotiating this. She’d be sold at just the offer of friends.That would be one good thing that would come from all this … Madi would have other kids to play with.But the valley was worth profoundly more than a few friends.Clarke leaned forward in her chair, looked Lexa in the eye, “Madi is never going to be Heda.”Lexa nodded, “I will do everything I can to ensure that doesn’t happen. Including talking to Madi myself.”Clarke sighed. That was all Lexa could promise really.“And the house … that stays with us …,” Clarke added.Lexa nodded.“Crime … violence …,” Clarke looked back at her, “We don’t want any of that here.”Lexa leaned back in her chair, her expression shifting into Heda mode, “Some violence will be necessary to enforce the laws. Unless we wish to keep the bunker as a prison … or … build a prison. But … I believe that physical punishments for crimes will be our way. Stealing costs fingers. Lashes for other crimes. Quick punishments. Easy to give. Little cost. A message to all who see the scars what the penalty is for crime … We … do this already … in the bunker … to maintain order. Lives are too valuable to take unless they must be taken …”Clarke closed her eyes.This was the grisly reality of having a society. That the threat of punishment, of violence would be necessary. She certainly didn’t want Madi to see any of that.At least it wasn’t killing though … The kind of justice she’d seen Lexa have to exact for crimes in the world before praimfaya. The non-lethal physical punishments Lexa was describing were humane by comparison. Bloody … but humane.“There’s gotta be order … I get it,” Clarke agreed, “That applies to using the valley too. It’s too important for everyone to just show up and start tearing it apart.”Lexa pressed her lips together and nodded slowly, “Nature worship perhaps … Some of the clans already do this. Trikru is one. The trees, the animals … the water and land … all sacred … by law and custom.”Lexa looked away, “It … should be obvious to anyone … seeing this place … that it is sacred … But … not every clan believes such things …”“Skykru doesn’t …,” Clarke looked back at her.“No … they do not …,” Lexa agreed, “But you do … And you were once Skykru …”Clarke nodded, but she hadn’t thought of herself as Skykru in a long time. Had maybe never truly been Skykru … even when she’d been their leader.“So maybe the … nature worshippers come first …,” Clarke said, “Small groups at first. To set things up for the rest. Lay the foundation with as little destruction to the valley as possible.”Lexa nodded, “A wise plan. The cost of leaving the bunker first is the work of building for the rest.”Clarke cocked her head a little, “The way you are here … how careful you are not to disturb anything … To not to take too much … Is that ‘cause you’re Trikru?”Lexa chewed her lip a little, “I … don’t know why I am this way. Anya took me out often … taught me how to survive in nature … how to hunt and fish and camp … so I would not starve if I was ever lost or taken in battle and had to find my way back. The flame taught me a great deal too … But … I always liked the forest. Watching the animals … There’s so much wisdom in them …”Clarke smiled at her.It was true.What she hadn’t learned from Madi about surviving in the valley they had learned from watching the animals.What the animals ate was probably safe for them to eat.And the animals were also just … a pleasure to watch.Going about their days on their little wings, on their little paws. Rabbits in particular. Watching them munch on flowers. So serene.Clarke loved watching them as much as Madi did. Even more than Madi did probably. Rabbits were so peaceful.And watching them, seeing them relaxed and calm as they loped from one flower or blade of grass to the next, munching with their little teeth, with their velvety little lips, it meant that everything was okay. Rabbits were skittish by nature, wary of threats. Wary of the predators that used to live in the valley … that were very likely nothing but a memory these days … But the memory of their old predators still loomed large in their furry little heads, under those soft little ears. They were always alert to danger. So when they let their guard down, when they were just munching flowers, were at peace, it was a signal of safety to all.And of course the baby bunnies were just ridiculously cute. Absurdly cute. Tiny little copies of their moms loping along beside them on even tinier little paws. Munching flowers with their even tinier little teeth, with their even smaller little velvety lips.Clarke had had an impulse to catch one of the babies to give to Madi as a pet, but then scolded herself for even having had that thought. Felt ashamed.These rabbits did not belong to them. They belonged to themselves, to their moms, to the valley. To Nature.She was just a guest there.Even Madi … born in the village, having lived her whole life there, was merely Nature’s guest.When Madi had first started showing Clarke how to hunt and fish in the valley, when a creature had to be taken for food, Clarke had said, “Yu gonplei ste odon” respectfully over the little body, as the Grounders did for their dead.Your fight is over.But after a little while, Clarke came to realize that the creatures in the valley had lives that were pretty idyllic. The amount of fighting in their lives had probably been very minimal.Fighting was more of a human thing.The prayer they said on the Ark seemed more appropriate.
In peace, may you leave this shore. In love, may you find the next. Safe passage on your travels, until our final journey on the ground. May we meet again.
Those words were pretty loaded for Clarke though.Words she’d said each time someone died on the Ark. Her father.Words she’d said when her friends had died from fighting or misadventure on the ground.It was a beautiful prayer though. And Madi had helped her translate what she could of it into Trig:
In peace, hofli yu bants dison sishou. Ona hodnes, hofli yu hon nes op. Klir gouthru ona yu soujon. Mebi oso na hit choda op nodotaim.
The translation into Trig helped lessen the sting of those old painful memories when she said the words over the body of one of Nature’s creatures.And speaking Trig had made Clarke feel closer to Lexa. To her world.She wasn’t sure if there wasn’t actually a word in Trig for ‘peace’, or if Madi simply hadn’t know what it was … but either way … that wasn’t great.There was a Trig word for love though.Hodnes.She liked it.It was soft.Sounded like something to be whispered in a lover’s ear in the soft morning light.Hodnes was what the valley should be treated with …“The valley should be respected …,” Clarke looked across the table at Lexa, “As much kept wild as possible. Take only what we need … as little as possible. Sustainably. That means …”Lexa nodded, “I know the word. A balanced cycle. After Bekka, the next commander had to survive on very little … on scorched earth before they found what little forest remained. Build from there. Much like now. The flame will be able to offer guidance.”Clarke nodded.Hopefully that was true.“The valley needs time to heal …,” Clarke added, “Even just since I’ve been here it’s grown. Gotten more lush. Repaired itself a little from the impact of just Louwoda Kliron Kru living here.”Lexa nodded, “We can limit hunting … Felling trees. Only allow a few to do it. Domesticate animals … Build a bigger farm. More gardens. Let as much as possible stay wild. Hopefully the valley will grow.”“Rainwater …,” Clarke added, “We can’t pollute the lake. The fish. So many people here could ruin that too. It has to be kept clean.”Lexa sighed.There was going to be a lot to this.And there was so much riding on careful planning. All of humanity. All of life on their planet no less.For the first time since she’d come to the valley, she wished she still had the flame in her head.“We can build more basins for rainwater,” Lexa agreed, “Limit fishing as well.”“All plans for the valley come to me for approval …,” Clarke looked back at her, “Or … Madi for approval … But … you know … me really.”Lexa smiled at her, “You must speak to your leader. She if she agrees to delegate so much authority to her ambassador ...”Clarke smirked, “She’ll agree to avoid having to do paperwork. And there’s not a lot of competition for the job. She’ll agree to my terms.”“Still …,” Lexa lifted her chin, “Madi should be asked. This is her valley. She is the Kliron Heda. And her wishes should be shown respect. By all.”Clarke couldn’t help a grin at that.As much as she definitely did not want Madi to have the kind of life Lexa had had, she couldn’t help but appreciate Lexa’s desire for their daughter to be treated with great respect.And respecting Madi, her wishes, her pride, had been one of the first pieces of parenting advice Lexa had given her about Madi.It had been good advice then, and it was good advice now.“I think it will help her … if she can have a different role … as Kliron Heda …,” Lexa added, “A role that is also highly respected.”Clarke nodded, “I’ll consult with my leader and get back to you …”“Soon would be good …,” Lexa looked at her carefully, “I must-““Got it,” Clarke stood up, the legs of her chair scraping against the floor.She didn’t need Lexa to say it.She knew Lexa was going back to the bunker.Just knowing it hurt more than enough.Clarke grabbed the whistle off the table that Lexa had whittled for calling Madi home and walked straight out the door. —- “Have you chosen your ambassador Kliron Heda?” Lexa asked as they sat around campfire that night, eating dinner … Eating the fish Madi had caught using the basket trap she’d shown Madi how to make, and prepared using one of Lexa’s recipes.Madi grinned at Lexa across the fire, her fingers all sticky from the fruit Lexa had picked that day, lifted her chin a little the way Lexa did and said, “Clarke kom Louwoda Kliron Kru has been chosen as my ambassador.”Lexa smiled back at her.At her little Kliron Heda.“Clarke and I will review all plans for the valley … the terms of the offer you present from your people when you return,” Madi added.Lexa nodded and took a bite of her fish, grinning into the bite, grinned at Clarke as she chewed.But Clarke looked a million miles away. Was staring off into the dark night surrounding them. Had barely touched her food. Had said very little since their talk.“When are you coming back?” Madi asked, “How many days?”Lexa took another bite from her plate.But the question seemed to pull Clarke out of her staring off into space. She looked at Lexa.Lexa finished chewing, then cleared her throat a little, “I can’t say … Plans will have to be discussed with …,” Aden? The commanders in her head when she took back the flame?, “… the clan council,” Lexa said finally. That was a certainty at least.“How long will that take?” Madi asked, “A week?”Lexa looked across the fire at Clarke, who looked like she was just about to start crying.“I can’t say …,” Lexa said quietly and took another bite.Madi arched an eyebrow, “Well who can say? You’re Heda.”Lexa sighed and looked across the fire at her, “Aden is Heda right now … my successor. I must share what I have learned here with him. Talk to the council about how we proceed. Prepare the plans so they can be presented to you Kliron Heda.”Madi’s little forehead furrowed, “Wull … How long is all that gonna take?”Lexa sighed as quietly as she could and looked back at her, “I don’t know.”Clarke reached over and took Madi’s hand, said gently, “It could take a while.”“How long is a while though?” Madi looked back at her.Clarke looked at Lexa.“It … could be … months … or …,” Lexa said gently.Madi shook her head, “I don’t like that plan.”“I … also don’t like it ...,” Lexa looked back at her, “But I will work to make sure that the people in the bunker agree to treat your valley with respect when they come. And … behave well.”“That’s what it means to be Heda …,” Clarke said to Madi gently, “She doesn’t get to do what she wants. She has to take care of the people in the bunker.”Madi arched an eyebrow, “But she’s here now.”“Yes …,” Lexa said gently, “I still work for them, even here. And when I return, I will work for them in the bunker. And for you.”“Can’t Aden do it though?” Madi looked back at her, “Your … successur?”“Aden has done a lot already …,” Lexa said gently, “He gave me this time with you.”“So I’ll come to the bunker then …,” Madi looked back at her, “To visit. Clarke can drive me.”Lexa resisted the impulse to look at Clarke, who had already told Lexa that Madi was not allowed to have anything to do with the bunker. Wasn’t allowed to go inside it.She didn’t want Madi to blame Clarke.Even if Clarke was maybe being overprotective.The chance of anything happening to Madi in the bunker was probably small, since no one there even knew who Madi was, had no reason to want to harm her.Unless they wanted to harm Lexa of course.But Madi was also a natblida. And Clarke was extremely wary of Madi getting sucked into the whole flame / natblida succession system … by Gaia, by the people in the bunker ... or even worse … by Madi volunteering for it. She didn’t want Madi anywhere near Grounder politics when it came to natblidas. Wasn’t taking any chances.“We’re gonna try to make the radio work …,” Clarke gave her a little smile, “So you two can talk.”“Okay …,” Madi looked at the ground, “But … that’s not the same.”“No,” Clarke said quietly, “It isn’t.” —— During Lexa’s last week in the valley, the days felt both long and short at the same time.Lexa tried to soak up as much of it as she could.The sunsets. The warm sunshine on her face. The still dizzying array of colors. The scent of the trees, the flowers. The sounds of the birds, the forest creatures. The feeling of the cool water against her skin when she swam in the lake. The feeling of mud under her toes. The golden glow of the campfire. The pleasure of simply cooking for her family.The quiet in her mind.She tried to live in the seconds.Tried to carve out a little extra room in her heart to store all the love Clarke and Madi had given her, to sustain her through whatever came next.The idea of being away from them was so painful, especially without the flame in her head to numb those feelings. But she would be making plans on their behalf for the valley. Would do her best to ensure that Madi and Clarke and their valley were treated with great respect.The knowledge that she was doing that work for them, for their future, would help her with the heartbreak of being away from them.And the pretense of making a treaty with Madi was as a good justification as any for the new rules, the new laws, the new requirements about how they would live that she needed the council and everyone else in the bunker to agree to before they came to the valley.Clarke cared about sustainability, but it needed to be a top priority to everyone else as well. Their survival, their peace, life on their planet depended on it.All from the bunker should have to walk to the valley, see the miles and miles of wasteland, the desert, the scorched trees, the alternative to living sustainably …They could not take too much. They would have to police one another. Laws and punishments could only go so far in restraining greed.They must understand that anything they took beyond what was carefully granted to them was stealing those things away from one another, from future generations. From their future selves even. And maybe even from the earth itself.Clarke was right to have her doubts about the people in the bunker. Thinking in this new way was going be a big change for many of them. For all of them really.None of them had ever had to live so carefully in nature before. In the bunker, they’d had no choice but to only take what little they were given. They did not want any more of the unpleasant food in the mess hall than what they had to eat to survive. They would have to be taught to reign in their desires when they saw all that the valley had to offer, all that could be so easily taken, so easily lost forever if they did not control themselves.Classes perhaps, education would have to begin to teach everyone in the bunker how to live a life of restraint. Of contentment. How to take pleasure in the small things. In the sights and smells and feel of this place. How to keep their hands to themselves, rather than fill their pockets with all they wished to take.Anyone caught taking too much would have to be made an example of, punished publicly. Bloodily. People could not abide seeing their fellows possessing what they restrained themselves from having. Jealousy would eat away at their self-restraint like ants.In that perfect paradise, Lexa would have to become hard again.Strictly enforce the new tenets of living simply, of showing restraint. Be a role model. Use her autocratic control to ensure that her people adhered to a sustainable lifestyle.It would be a challenge.Showing her people all the bounty of the valley and making sure that they didn’t touch, didn’t take. That just because they were there did not mean that the valley was theirs. Just because they could take did not mean that they were allowed to.The population of the valley would be far smaller than her empire of thousands had been before, the 13 clans. But her control over her people in the valley would have to be far greater, more involved in the small choices they made day to day. What they ate. What they built. What they took from the land.But becoming that kind of leader would be necessary.The clans who had worshipped nature during their lives on the ground would be her allies. Those whose customs demanded at least showing respect to the plants and wildlife around them. Who were better at living with nature. Trikru in particular. Honestly, it would have been nice if there were far more Trikru in the bunker to ensure that their new lifestyle was adhered to, that Lexa’s laws of sustainability were followed by all. Trikru followed the flame religiously, yielded to its wisdom, heeded its authority, Lexa’s authority, as they were the most ancient of the clans. Trikru had been the keepers of the flame since the first commander … had had its value proven to them time and time again over the generations. But filling the bunker with only Trikru would’ve caused other problems … The flame had told her that the bunker needed genetic diversity … And her own mind had told her that bringing over a thousand Trikru to Polis before praimfaya to put in the bunker would’ve risked a conflict with the other clan leaders over what they were doing there … a fight that no one had had time for when the radiation had been approaching.And truthfully, even Trikru had never had to live surrounded by such bounty and deny themselves as much as they would have to in the valley. It would be a transition for them too.The young would be Lexa’s allies as well. Those more flexible in their thinking. Those more used to deferring to those in authority. Those who did not have as much of a sense of entitlement as those who had lived lives of abundance for many more years on the ground.It was their future that Lexa’s laws would be protecting.And they had the most to gain by supporting the new way of life she would require of her people.Living in this new way would be a big struggle for many of the other clans besides Trikru though. For the people of Ice Nation especially, who had never had such bounty as the valley in their frozen wasteland … and who were the most hard and warlike as a result.But there could not be rebellion.Could not be any clan leaders who subverted her authority.And there were clan leaders in the bunker.It had been useful to have those clan leaders underground, their authority, their familiarity with their people to help keep order in exchange for their seats on the council. A voice in Lexa’s government.But it would be tempting for them to rebel against her in the valley. To demand that it be divided up among the 12 clans so that they could each have a piece of it to rule over themselves … as they had ruled their own lands before praimfaya ...Would be tempting for them to try and take all of it for themselves ... To scheme with the other clan leaders and promise their people lives of less restraint if they fought against Lexa’s authority and strict rules … If they made alliances and wiped out the people of the other clans so that they could have more for themselves …The probability of that happening was not small. The scheming would start as soon as news of the valley was shared.Just the idea of that, of rebellion and war in the valley filled Lexa with boiling rage.She would have to do whatever it took to keep that from happening.The worst things maybe.Executing leaders.Public executions to dissuade their successors …If they would even be allowed to have successors.In the valley, they should have only one authority.The flame.Only the knowledge it held, and the wisdom of the earliest commanders inside it, who had lived through such conditions before, would be able to successfully guide them on their path forward.The dissolution of the individual clans, all falling in line behind the flame had new importance now.The flame had proven itself useful in the bunker. Lexa had been able to address a problem with the production capacity of the farm early on, much to the surprise of the farm workers from Skykru.That had inspired more faith in the flame among even those in the bunker who were skeptical of it.The clans had also gotten closer to one another in the bunker. Many had been divided by vast distances before. Some had been divided by their histories of animosity and war against one another. Underground though, in close quarters, playing games and listening to music together, romances bridging those divisions had emerged. New friendships had developed that crossed those old lines too. Friendships based on commonalities, similar personalities, but plenty of friendships based on similar grievances and grumbling as well.Some would be more open to the dissolution of the clans, the weakening of old divisions and their clan leader’s power.The clan leaders themselves would oppose it of course.Politically, they probably must be given the chance to adapt, to enforce their people’s adherence to the new laws of the land.But defiance would need to be swiftly dealt with.Some clan leaders would very likely die by her hand.Lexa took no pleasure in that idea.Even the most grumbly ones … the ones who had caused her the most grief in the bunker … they were human beings too. Precious lives.But they were also only human, in the pejorative sense of that word ...Had the weaknesses that all humans possessed to at least some degree.The clan leaders’ hunger for power was deeply human, had helped them achieve the power they had held in their lives before praimfaya, and that would perhaps be their undoing as well.Lexa would not like for Madi to see her being that hard version of herself. Enforcing order and restraint and obedience with her own hands, with her own blade.Even if she was doing such things for Madi, with her future in mind.Madi had only ever known Lexa.She hadn’t met Heda yet.And that would … very likely be a shock.Clarke had seen that side of her.Accepted it. Understood the necessity of it.Eventually.But that was because Clarke had been a leader herself.Had done unspeakable things for her people too.She had baulked at Lexa’s brutality at first, had hated her for it …Only being in Lexa’s shoes herself had helped her understand.In the valley, Madi would very likely see the brutality of Heda, but would hopefully never be in a position to understand it.Madi had seen her heart, her softness. But that would only make Heda’s brutality that much more of a shock.Lexa didn’t want to imagine how Madi would look at her when she saw what Heda was capable of …And weirdly, she didn’t want Madi’s forgiveness, or her understanding for what she would very likely have to do.Would prefer for it to stay monstrous to her.Because enacting physical punishments and executing rebels was monstrous. Even if there were good reasons behind it. Even if it was just as necessary as sacrificing some of the creatures in the valley for food.Eating animals was monstrous too.Even if it was necessary.No one who had allowed themselves to truly look into the eyes of one of Nature’s beautiful creatures that they had slain, as it was struggling for its last breaths, could deny that it felt wrong.It was wrong.‘Wrong’ and ‘necessary’ were not mutually exclusive.Unfortunately.Tragically.But how Madi would react was unknowable really.Madi loved her. That much was clear.And love could be … unpredictable …Could blind eyes to what was right in front of them.Could bend the light so that an idealized view of a loved one was preserved. Even when that loved one was covered in darkness. Even when they were covered in blood.Love was crafty like that.Tricky.Deceptive.Bizarre.But sometimes, love allowed one to see clearly too.Allowed Lexa to see the people in the bunker who grumbled the loudest as the scared and tired children they were. Allowed her to extend them a bit more patience, no matter how tired she was of their complaining.But Lexa did not want any of her darkness to slither into Madi’s heart if it warped itself to make room for the darker parts of her.Clarke had done an exceptional job of shielding Madi from her darkness.And despite her own hardships, Madi was filled with light. Radiated light.Clarke and Lexa could share their darkness with each other instead. Were able to speak of it freely.It was a relief. Being able to share their darkest thoughts with each other like that. The way their broken pieces fit together. Like a messed up puzzle.Sometimes, their darkness came out in unexpected ways.Sometimes, Clarke called her Heda in bed. Sometimes Clarke wanted to be tied up, the way she’d been tied up the many times she’d been captured and held prisoner. Sometimes she wanted to tie Lexa up. Wanted absolute control. The kind of total control a dictator had.Together, in the darkness, they could play with those deep dark parts of themselves. Let their monsters stretch their wings for a little while. Let those parts of themselves out that had no place in the valley, no use when they lived in perfect peace. But that lived inside them nonetheless.During their last week together in the valley, Clarke had tied Lexa up quite a few times.Pleasured her just relentlessly.As if to drive home the point of just how insane it was for Lexa to leave her.They didn’t need to talk about it.Clarke made it perfectly clear.Lexa made it clear that she understood with her hoarse cries, with her desperate panting, with how little she struggled against the ropes around her wrists.And Lexa was just as relentless.Told Clarke with her hands, with her tongue, with her hips, with every muscle in her body that she didn’t want to go, and that Clarke belonged to her no matter where she was, in this life and in every other.Made sure that every part of Clarke that she could touch with her hands, that she could kiss and lick and suck and bite and press her skin against understood that. And that all the parts of Clarke that she couldn’t touch understood it as well.They pushed each other as hard as they could that last week, as far as they could go, worked out all their frustrations in bed. Made each other feel everything they had to say. Sweated it out.Sometimes it felt like they were half fucking, half fighting.After one particularly intense night, as they lay side by side, covered in sweat, their bodies littered in hickeys and bruises, Clarke turned to face her, panting, “You know … what you might have to do … to protect this place … right?”Lexa turned on the pillow to face her, “Yes.”Clarke nodded, then looked up at the ceiling, and after her breathing evened out, she said, “I have guns. Bullets. A ton of them. Everything you made Skykru leave behind before they came to the bunker. And not just guns either ... All kinds of weapons. All hidden. I’ll tell you where.”Lexa nodded up at the ceiling, “And places to hide?”“Yeah …,” Clarke answered, “Lots of them. I’ll show you on the map, before we leave.”Lexa reached over and squeezed her hand.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Clarke and Lexa rode in the rover back to the bunker.Such a short trip compared to Lexa’s seven day long trek to the valley. Hours instead of days.Lexa watched the barren landscape of sand dunes speed past the windows … all the nothing … the devastation. Clarke’s words about humanity echoing in her mind.After a while, she shifted her focus from those heavy thoughts to the rover itself. It was a marvel. Human ingenuity at its finest. Mankind giving themselves the gift of unfathomable speed.Arriving at one’s destination without aching muscles, without being covered in sand and grime. Without getting sunburned.Lexa looked over at Clarke in the driver’s seat and smiled, “You could not have left me this? Outside the bunker?”“I considered it …,” Clarke grinned back at her, “But you don’t know how to drive.”Or even open the door.Clarke had had to show her how.But that wasn’t the real reason of course.Someone else in the bunker most definitely knew how to drive the rover. And how to open the door. Someone from Skykru. The drive would have been so easy, no risk of tears in their radiation suit. They would have been able to make it to the valley and back no problem.But as much as Clarke had wanted to get Lexa to the valley as fast as humanly possible, Clarke had her deep misgivings about anyone else from the bunker coming to the valley. Especially Skykru.She had faith in Lexa though. Endless faith.And as a nightblood, Lexa would be able to make the trek to the valley on the surface. Anyone else in a radiation suit who tried would likely encounter a glass storm in the desert that would tear their radiation suit to shreds. They wouldn’t make it.Only when Lexa came to the valley, when her love was returned to her alive and well, would Clarke be open to the possibility that mankind might be worthy of the valley … Could be trusted with what little was left of life on their planet …And if something had happened to Lexa in the bunker, if the people there had betrayed her and murdered her despite all Lexa’s hard work and noble intentions and dogged commitment to keeping them alive, well … then Clarke didn’t want to make it any easier for whoever that left in charge to make it to the valley.Unless it was Aden.That would be fine too.Any of the nightbloods would be fine.More than fine. They were welcome in the valley. They were Lexa’s children for all intents and purposes. Had no doubt been raised with Lexa’s goodness and wisdom. Her nobility and thoughtfulness.And they would be able to make it to the valley without the rover too.When she had laid out her message in stones around the bunker, she had spelled out, ‘Lexa Come to Shallow Valley. Safe. - C. G.’ Had specified Lexa.Not offering any more detail.She’d needed to talk things over with Lexa before anyone else came.And now she had done that, but how things would play out with the valley was still a huge unknown.Unknowable.Lexa had said they needed to talk to Aden.But at least Lexa had acknowledged the truth in her fears … Was committed to protecting the valley too …And that felt … significant.Comforting.When they pulled up in front of the bunker and Clarke cut the engine, Lexa stepped out and looked at the ruins of Polis.It was still bleak. So bleak in contrast to what it had been. A bustling city full of life and tall buildings and market stall owners calling out what they had to trade to all the passers by.Now it was just piles and piles of rubble.But knowing that the valley existed made it more bearable to look at.Clarke took Lexa’s hand.Lexa hadn’t even heard Clarke’s footsteps crunching through the dust to approach her.Perhaps she had become too reliant on the hypervigilance the flame gave her … was a sitting duck without it.Or perhaps it was the fact that she just felt so safe with only Clarke around. So completely safe it was almost unfathomable.That was one of the many costs of bearing the flame … hypervigilance. Even when there were no real threats to face, new ones were imagined.Constantly.So that Lexa would always be ready for them.Lexa closed her eyes and tilted up her chin. Felt the warmth of the sun on her face. Felt the breeze rustling her hair. Enjoyed the quiet in her mind for a few more moments. She would not have those pleasures once they went inside the bunker and she took back the flame …She felt Clarke put her head on her shoulder, breathed in Clarke’s scent and smiled to herself. At least she would have the pleasure of Clarke’s company for a little while longer … and that was no small pleasure … Not feeling alone. Having her person with her.But she felt selfish accepting it.Taking Clarke down into the cold gray walls of the bunker.After growing up in space, surely Clarke would never want to be in such a place ever again …Lexa had only been in the bunker for 2 years and even she felt a clench of dread in her chest at the thought of having to go back underground.Time seemed to work differently down there. When surrounded by cold gray walls, the seconds, the minutes, the hours, they just stretched and stretched.Lexa turned to face her, took both Clarke’s hands and said softly, “You don’t have to come inside … I can bring Aden out …”Clarke looked back at her for a long moment, the wind tussling her blonde waves, then said, “I’m coming in with you. That’s the deal. You say you’re safe here? Let’s see.”And from the way Clarke said it, Lexa got the distinct impression that if the bunker did not pass Clarke’s inspection, she would find herself bound and gagged in the back of the rover, headed back to Shallow Valley.Which … Lexa couldn’t find it in herself to debate with Clarke about. Wasn’t even sure she wanted to win that debate honestly …So instead, Lexa leaned forward a little. Rested their foreheads together.Lexa felt Clarke’s hands reach out and touch her leather jacket. Trying to offer her a comforting touch, Lexa thought at first. But no. Clarke’s hands were feeling for the guns on Lexa’s person. The two in her jacket pockets. The one stuffed in the waistband at the back of Lexa’s pants.There was a knife in Lexa’s boot as well.Clarke had insisted.Had argued that Lexa couldn’t know what they’d be walking into … What had been happening down there in Lexa’s absence.And Lexa didn’t have the flame in her head anymore. Wasn’t Heda.Others might not move to protect her so readily once they went inside.Or at all maybe.But they would both be armed to the teeth.Lexa pulled Clarke into her arms, held her in a long hug, and then sighed, “Ok. Let’s go.”They slid down into the tunnel, and Clarke’s hands trailed along the walls in the darkness. To keep her balance. But also to feel what Lexa had done.What Lexa’s muscles and determination had done to the solid stone that had tried to keep them apart … Smashed it to fucking pieces that crunched under her boots with each step.
God how Clarke loved her …
When they stepped into the fleimkepas’ chamber and over to the hatch, Lexa pulled a piece of metal out of her pocket that was shaped like a triangle and was nearly as big as her palm, that had little prongs on the longest edge. She placed the long edge into a slot in the metal hatch and turned it like a key … then pulled the hatch door open.They stepped down into the decontamination chamber, down the metal steps, pulled the hatch shut behind them. Followed all the protocols to a T … The decontamination protocols Lexa knew by heart, like a religious ritual. She could have done them in her sleep after so many nights of returning from smashing stone.When they were clean, Lexa entered a code into the keypad by the big metal door, pulled it open, and then they stepped through it into the bunker, and both stood there for a moment, blinking at the artificial light. No warmth in it. None of the rich golden hues of sunlight.Lexa took Clarke’s hand. Grateful to have her there by her side, even if she did feel incredibly selfish for bringing her into the bunker. She could have insisted Clarke stay out. But Aden would want to hear what Clarke had to say. And the less trips back and forth to the surface, the better. Less risk of even the slightest accidental breech of the decontamination procedures causing a catastrophe inside the bunker.No one was out in the main chamber. It was ‘day time’ in the bunker. Nearly everyone would be at their work stations, and those who weren’t would be in the mess hall or hanging out in the bunk rooms.They didn’t run into a soul as they walked to the commander’s office … Which was just as well. Managing information was important. They should not speak to anyone before they reported to the commander’s office.Aden’s office now.Lexa entered the code in the keypad on the wall and the doors unlocked.But Aden wasn’t there.No doubt he was off making the rounds, overseeing his people, tending to something. But he would be back in time.Lexa took a seat at the meeting table, but Clarke took her time looking around.Her eyes trailed around the big office. The bookshelves full of technical manuals, the meeting table, the chairs, the grand desk, the radio controls behind it.Clarke walked over and sat down by the radio, started futzing with it.This was the reason she hadn’t been able to tell Lexa she had stayed. She had lost radio communication with her from Becca’s lab.She flipped switches and turned knobs. And the radio crackled to life at her touch.She saw a round dial with a half dozen labels around the edges, like numbers on a clock. One of the labels she recognized from the lettering etched across the metal on the radio in the rover.She turned the dial to that channel and the radio crackled with static, made a buzzing sound she recognized. She pushed the mic button down and the static stopped, said a few words into the silence.She wasn’t on the receiving end of that message, but that familiar buzzing sound on this frequency and channel, it sounded just like the one she heard on the radio in the rover.
God.
All that time.
Two years.
Just the turn of a dial away from being able to talk to each other. Just a 180 degree turn and Lexa would’ve known she wasn’t in space, would’ve heard Clarke radioing her from outside the bunker. Wouldn’t have had to grieve what she had believed to be Clarke’s permanent absence from the rest of her life … All it would have taken was a turn of that dial and Lexa’s heart wouldn’t have been broken.Lexa hadn’t known that Clarke had been talking to her over the radio all that time, day after day, coming back to the bunker month after month, sitting in the rover, calling her on the radio, talking into the silence. Listening to those crackles over the speaker for something. Anything.Those 180 degrees had created two years of total separation.But they’d be able to talk now ...Anyone from the bunker would be able to call them on the radio now.Clarke didn’t love that … opening up their perfect paradise to the worries of the people in the bunker. But she needed to be able to talk to Lexa … and Madi needed to be able to talk to Lexa. Especially Madi. Clarke would be able to drive out to visit … and maybe … eventually … she’d feel ok about Madi visiting too … maybe meeting Lexa outside the bunker …But for now, the radio was at least something she could give Madi … and Lexa.The door swung open and Aden strode in, and then stopped abruptly.Lexa could scarcely believe the difference in him. And not just the pauldron on his shoulder, the crimson sash wrapped around him, the little gold wheel pressed to his forehead. She had seen him don all the symbols of Heda before she’d left.But his expression had so changed. Gotten so serious in just her short time away.The weight of 1,200 souls now so clearly settled onto his shoulders.The flame now fully settled into his brain. Had taken its hold.He looked older. The body of a young man ... But the look in his eyes … ancient.And then his expression softened all at once.When she stood up, Aden lurched forward and grabbed Lexa … pulled her into a tight hug, buried his face in her neck like a child … even though he had to lean down a little to do it … At 16, he was already taller than her.Lexa hugged him tight, swaying him back and forth a little.This boy.Her boy.He would always be her boy, no matter how much wisdom he had in his head. No matter how old he was.She still remembered the first time she’d seen him … this blue-eyed boy … when he was just a baby wrapped in a blanket, in the arms of a fleimkepa. When she’d been allowed to hold him. She’d been around 8 years old at the time.He’d felt so small in her arms. Played with her fingers. Smiled at her with his chubby little cheeks.Lexa had never seen anything so precious.She had endured years of hard training to fight in the conclave by then. But holding him had made her feel so many soft things …He let out a sigh and leaned back.“We have much to discuss …” Aden said officially.‘One moment of weakness and then straight down to work …’ Lexa thought.But that hug, that moment of softness he showed meant everything to her. It meant that Aden had headed her advice, her voice in his head telling him how to hold onto the soft parts of himself. He hadn’t lost himself to the cacophony of voices in his head telling him to be like stone. Telling him to crush the soft parts of himself into dust.His own voice was still in there.He could still hear it clearly among the rest. Act on his own will entirely.It had taken years for Lexa to figure out how to do that. How to not lose herself in the flame. How to cultivate those little flashes she caught of herself as she went about her duties and days and make her own voice in her mind just as loud as the rest of the voices in her head.The knowledge of how to do that was her gift to all future commanders. Her legacy that she passed on to them in her own memories that were stored in the flame.How to build a little wall around their humanity. Their sense of self. No matter what their responsibilities as Heda required of them.Aden closed the office doors and stepped over to Clarke, gripped her forearm, gave her a little grin, “Welcome Clarke.”“Heda,” Clarke smiled back at him.She wanted to say, ‘You wear it well,’ but she didn’t want to patronize him. He was Heda after all. And they did have much to discuss. She hoped that Aden would be even half as good and reasonable about everything as Lexa had been.Lexa had confidence in him, so Clarke tried to be optimistic.He took a seat behind the big desk and Clarke and Lexa took their seats opposite him.“There is a va-,” Lexa started, but Aden raised a hand and she went silent.That little gesture that Lexa must have done hundreds of times as Heda to quiet a room.Aden shook his head a little and sighed, “Sorry Hed- … Lexa …,” he corrected himself.Lexa smiled at him, “My apologies Heda.”“I have new information …,” Aden looked at her, “Now that we have a way up to the surface, I had extensive readings taken of the radiation levels on the ground.”Lexa nodded.A sensible decision.She had already had one test run before she’d left, confirming that it wasn’t safe on the ground. And Skykru had already run their predictive models on the computers in Arkadia months before the radiation had reached them, but it never hurt to double check. Quadruple check.“It’s worse than Skykru predicted …,” Aden looked at her.Lexa shifted in her chair.“The radiation is not breaking down as quickly as anticipated …,” Aden reported, “Given the rate of decay … it will be 136 years until the ground will be habitable for them … at least.”Lexa and Clarke looked at each other, then back at Aden.“Is … that what Skykru says?” Clarke asked nervously.Aden shook his head, “It’s what I say. A member of Skykru came to the surface with me in a suit to take the readings with their devices. I saw the readings myself. Did the calculations … And … once I saw how to take the readings, I took them a hundred more times myself … reran the calculations thousands of times to confirm.”Clarke’s eyebrows raised. Aden most definitely had the flame now.But Lexa was looking down at the floor.That was it.It was over.The systems in the bunker would never sustain them for so long … even with every adjustment ...Lexa had thought of that possibility herself before praimfaya … That it was possible that the radiation might make the ground uninhabitable for longer than the 5 years Raven’s simulations had predicted ...And to prepare for that possibility, Lexa had had all the bunker’s provisions reviewed, had had the air and water filtration systems checked, the electrical systems, the farm’s production capacity … to assess how much longer they could sustain themselves if absolutely needed.Had ensured that the bunker could sustain them for 10 years if needed … in what little time she’d had to prepare before praimfaya’s arrival …But beyond that … even if they dramatically reduced the population of the bunker, continued to restrict new births, put those inside it in a very small space to live … in the end, it wouldn’t matter. The highly specialized equipment the bunker relied on … the air filtration systems, the CO2 scrubbers, the life support systems were a hundred years old … and they wouldn’t last another a century.Not even close.It was a lost cause … as far as she could estimate. Maybe Aden had a different assessment.But god … when everyone found out …“The one who took the readings …” Lexa looked at him.Aden lifted his chin, “It’s not safe on the surface … because of the radiation … and his helmet came loose … There will not be any more volunteers for a while …”Lexa looked back at him and gave him a shallow nod.Aden had killed him.The information about conditions on the ground would cause an absolute panic in the bunker. Havoc. Outbursts and violence that could very likely spiral into complete chaos.No one could know until there was a plan.And even then …But at the same time … Aden had never had to kill anyone before … and Lexa tried to show him as much understanding as she could with her eyes.Not sympathy.He did not need her sympathy. Not for making a sensible decision.And Clarke was in the room with them.But still … it was the first time he’d had to take a life for his people. See the brutal big picture and do what must be done for them.“What do you see?” Lexa asked.Aden closed his eyes and pulled in a deep breath, let it out slowly. Letting the flame show him the visions, the possibilities, the permutations. Adding his own knowledge of current conditions inside the bunker, all the variables, the latest information.After a minute, Aden opened his eyes and looked at Clarke for a long moment.“You know Clarke can be trusted …” Lexa looked at him, “From me … you know it … She can be trusted absolutely.”“No one can know …,” Aden said to Clarke.Clarke nodded and gave him a sympathetic look, “I know how hard it is … being in charge. And … I understand … how people are. I won’t tell anyone. I swear.”Aden looked at Lexa, “I see the same outcome you saw. The same outcome I have seen every day since I learned … We have … maybe 8 years left …”“Yes.” Lexa looked back at him.They just looked at each other in silence.“We can bring food …,” Clarke offered, feeling a bit helpless as Aden and Lexa had some sort of wordless conversation.But Aden and Lexa were still just looking at each other in silence.“Food won’t be the problem …,” Lexa said quietly, “It will be the life support systems.”“You did so well …,” Aden sighed at her, “… creating this peace for them … Two years of nearly perfect peace. Thank you for that.”“Wait … What about the nightblood solution?” Clarke asked, starting to panic.Aden finally looked at her, “There is no nightblood solution. There never was. We don’t have a way to get to space to make the serum … And it’s not possible to do safe bone marrow extractions from a natblida. Even Bekka’s lab would not have the materials necessary to do such a procedure safely ...”Aden’s jaw clenched, “You cannot just take bone marrow from a natblida … That’s why Bekka’s lab had the shuttle … because her scientists had to go to space to make more of her serum … rather than just using transplants to make more … Luna would’ve died from her extraction … not immediately perhaps … but … in the days after.”Clarke closed her eyes. Abby hadn’t said anything about that at the lab. And she had extracted bone marrow from Luna twice, in the same day. And if that process wasn’t sustainable … if they couldn’t keep doing extractions on Luna safely to save everyone … then … Abby’s plan must’ve been to turn only those who had been at the lab into nightbloods. Clarke. Raven. Jackson. Most of the people Abby cared about …In her desperation for a solution, Abby had become the Mountain Men.Clarke shook her head a little.Or maybe … Abby just … hadn’t known about the risks of taking bone marrow from a nightblood … They’d been so focused on whether the recipient would survive the procedure … Maybe nightblood biology was just … very different than regular people … maybe their bone marrow just couldn’t be taken the same way …But either way, in the end, Luna had died so that she could become a nightblood.Clarke hadn’t been sure what had ultimately become of Luna … Luna had snuck out of the lab after they’d taken her bone marrow the second time … by force … But she knew now.Clarke sighed and looked at Aden, “I’m so sorry.”“When your mother found out you were alive …,” Aden continued, “… in Lexa’s absence … she attempted an extraction on one of the natblidas here … during his health exam. Gaia saw that it was not a normal exam and stopped it. Your mother is in lockup now so she does not attempt it again … or talk other healers into making such attempts … if they don’t already know of her … method. There will be no further sacrifices of natblidas. As Heda Lexa decreed.”Clarke nodded and looked away. It was merciful of Aden not to have just killed Abby on the spot for risking the life of one of the natblidas like that.“What is your news?” Aden asked Lexa.“Clarke has found a valley … untouched by the death wave …,” Lexa answered, “The Shallow Valley. It is small … but a perfect paradise. Animals. Plants. A lake. The village of Louwoda Kliron Kru.”Aden smiled at her. An Aden smile. Not the twitch at the corner of his mouth that the flame would prefer him to limit his expression to.He closed his eyes for a moment, as if he was imagining it.“And … there is a girl … a natblida … Madi,” Lexa added.Clarke sat up in her chair, her expression turning to steel at the mention of Madi, of her having any involvement at all in the bunker.“We will not bring her here … no matter what …,” Lexa looked at Aden.He nodded, “We do not need more mouths to feed.”Clarke relaxed a tiny bit and shot Lexa a salty look for even mentioning Madi.“Is she … happy?” Aden asked, looking at Clarke.Clarke couldn’t help it.Her eyes got a little watery at the question.At the thought of just how happy Madi was.At the good life she’d been able to give Madi in spite of everything she’d been through, losing her family, her friends to the radiation. Madi was brimming with with happiness from her life in the valley.At the fact that of all the questions Aden could have asked about her, he’d asked about Madi’s happiness ...Lexa reached over and took Clarke’s hand.“Yes …,” Clarke smiled back at him, “She has a good life. She’s happy.”Aden nodded slowly, looking at her, considering for what must have been two minutes of silence.He looked at Lexa, “You are both well fed … and I take it that …”“Yes,” Lexa nodded.Aden looked away, thinking for a minute, and then looked back at them, “In a little while … things will get … harder here … when people find out … And after Abby’s … experiment … the natblidas are no longer safe here. I am sending them on a scouting mission with you. To the valley.”Clarke’s breath caught in her throat.Lexa eyebrows raised, “But … you need them here. And … I’m-““They were a comfort before …” Aden gave her a little smile, “But I don’t need the council of children Lexa … I have the clan council on my side …,” he tapped the side of his head, “And I have more than enough advisors. You have the most opinions of all …”Aden looked away, “The natblidas will not be returning from their scouting mission … And neither will you.”Clarke and Lexa looked at each other.“When things get harder …,” Aden mused, “… if I am the only natblida … it will give the clans an extra incentive to keep me alive if they wish to benefit from the flame for the time we have left … Keep them from killing me to replace me with another natblida … whose rule they might believe they would prefer.”Lexa squeezed Clarke’s hand and then looked back at Aden, “Give me the flame. Go with them.”Clarke’s heart clenched in her chest.No Lexa.
Don’t.
Aden shook his head, “No.”“Lexa …,” Clarke looked at her desperately, her dream of a life in the valley with Lexa and Madi, the dream Aden had just offered them crumbling …“He’s my child,” Lexa looked back at her.Clarke’s eyes filled with tears and she slumped back in her chair.If Madi was in Aden’s shoes, Clarke would do the exact same thing … take the flame, stay in the bunker so Madi could live in the valley.Aden looked at Lexa, “The natblidas will not need a commander in the valley … they will need a mother. And you are the best they could hope for.”Lexa’s eyes filled with tears, and she shook her head, “You go. Please. Let me stay.”“No. It is decided,” Aden said evenly.Lexa shot to her feet, her fists clenched at her sides, “Aden, you will go. Give me the flame.”Aden lifted his chin, “You would have to kill me to take it.”Lexa said the passphrase to make the flame remove itself from Aden’s neck … but nothing happened.Aden just grinned back at her, “I changed the passphrase.”“Aden …” Lexa bristled.“I will not give it back,” Aden looked at her sternly, “This is my role. To be the last commander. And I want it. You will have to kill me to take it ... And what will that accomplish?”Lexa’s jaw worked silently as she looked back at him, her fists still clenched at her sides.“Will you kill me?” Aden arched an eyebrow at her, “With those guns you snuck in here?”Lexa’s eyebrows raised. Aden … when he’d hugged her … he … had also been checking her for weapons …The flame would have told him to do it … even though it was Lexa he was hugging … someone who would never hurt him … The flame would demand that Aden assess the potential for a threat …“It won’t be enough …,” Aden looked back at her, “You would need hundreds of natblidas to even have a chance at repopulating the earth. You will be the last … or very close to the last.”“Aden … Please …,” Lexa said shakily, “Go with them … You will all have an excellent mother in Clarke … She is the best anyone could hope for.”Clarke wiped the tears off her cheeks that were just streaming down her face at this point.Aden smiled at her. “One can never have too many excellent mothers. And 7 children … 8 with Madi … will need 2 mothers …”His expression got more official, “You have served your time well Lexa kom Trikru. Twelve years you were Heda … Built the coalition. United the 13 clans. Brought 1,200 to this bunker safely. Kept every single one of them alive for two years. Gave them order. Peace …,” Aden glanced at Clarke, “Your legacy will be peace.”And Clarke remembered how she had once said those same words to Lexa: Your legacy will be peace. Had said them long ago, when Skykru had wiped out hundreds of Lexa’s warriors … and she had convinced Lexa not to take her revenge on Arkadia. And Lexa had listened. Had changed. Had apparently created peace in the bunker too, when it would have been so much easier to enforce obedience through fear and brutality … so much simpler to do that in many ways …“That will be your legacy ...,” Aden looked at Lexa, “In your absence, you will be a symbol of peace and order to the people here. An example for them to emulate as they face what is ahead.”Clarke’s heart was just hammering in her chest. She felt lightheaded from all this …Lexa shook her head again, “No.”“Do you not have faith in me?” Aden looked back at her gently, “I cannot save them. Oso gonplei ste odon. But I will do my best for them. And when their time is done … and the life support systems give out … I will join you in the valley.”Lexa sighed and ran a hand over her face.She had so much fucking faith in Aden. He knew that … now that he had the flame. Now that he could see just how much she believed in him. Now that he could see all the past commanders and their limitations, their mistakes. He was even more suited to the role than Lexa.If anyone could make it out of the bunker once their people’s fight was over … in maybe 8 years … could make it to the valley, it would be Aden.Aden tapped the side of his head and grinned at her, “And you will be with me … in here … helping me … Every step of the way …”Lexa slumped down in her chair and sighed, “When things get hard … it will get dangerous … Very dangerous … You increase your chance of survival if you are the only natblida here … That is true … but-”“And I am an even better fighter than you …,” Aden smiled, “How many times have I bested you in our matches since we’ve been here? And I have even more allies now than you had. The clan leaders have no baggage with me … no old grudges … They work to curry my favor … see me as a new leader … They do not realize just how well I already know them …”Lexa leaned back in her chair and looked up at the ceiling. Shut her eyes.Aden looked at Clarke, “I will have your oath that you will take good care of the natblidas. And Lexa kom Trikru.”Clarke smiled at him, her eyes watery with tears, her heart full to bursting. She would have Lexa. In the valley. The valley would be safe in their careful hands. And Madi would have the friends she so desperately wanted.They would raise those children in peace. The natblidas would never have to fear for their lives again, after having had to grow up fearing having to fight one other in the conclave. Having to fear losing their own lives one day as Heda.Clarke put her hand over her heart, “You have my oath. It will be my honor.”Aden grinned at her, “Eight children is … a lot of children …”Lexa sighed and looked at him, “They are very well behaved. Do not frighten Clarke.”Aden looked at her, “What sort of supplies do you need for the journey back?”Clarke shook her head, “I have everything they’ll need. We have a rover … I can drive them back fast. They can bring what they like. Leave any supplies you need here.”Lexa sat up a little, “When do we need to leave?”“Now.” Aden looked back at her.Lexa blinked at him, “Now?”“I cannot hide conditions on the ground forever …,” Aden explained, “And I cannot have the people here trying to steal their bone marrow when they find out what we are facing … For their own safety … it is better that they leave now. I will call my lieutenants here. Tell them to pack only essentials and speak to no one of their mission. Order them to stay in the valley with you. They do not need to know what is happening here. I … have not told them … about the radiation … After … some time … tell them we are not able to come out. That … I am not able to join them … yet … Tell them when they are ready.”Lexa gave him a nod.“What will you tell people … about us?” Clarke asked.Aden looked at her, “For now, that Lexa found you. That you have found enough water and food to support a few, and that the natblidas have been sent out with you to conserve resources here while you are out searching for a place that can support more. The idea of such a place as the valley … a place they cannot go to may cause … a sort of madness in the people here if they knew of it …”“Clarke’s mother …,” Lexa looked at him, “To say goodbye?”Clarke internally cringed.The news that Abby had killed Luna and tried to steal bone marrow from one of the natblidas in the bunker was still fresh in her mind … And it brought up all kinds of not great memories for Clarke about her mom …Aden looked at Clarke carefully.“She’s gonna have questions …,” Clarke said.“You can only tell her the story I have just told you,” Aden looked back at her, “That you have found a place for a few to survive and are searching for a habitable place for all of us … And I would prefer that any goodbye take place here. Neither of you should be out of my sight or leave this office until you go.”Aden looked at Lexa, “You understand.”Lexa nodded.Take as few risks as possible. No risk of the information getting out early. Less variables to consider.“This is a very big decision Aden …,” Lexa looked back at him, “Are you sure about this?”He cocked to one side for a minute, thinking, re-running the calculations.“Yes …,” Aden smiled, “This is … nice … A … matriarchy … in the valley … Bekka and I … we like this. I … cannot save them all … but … I can save them. I will save those who can be saved.”Lexa smiled at him.
Save them.
The flame chanted it constantly. But Aden was wise. He’d calculated the odds. Would stay with his people and give them all that he could.Would save the ones who could be saved.The natblidas.And that Bekka approved this plan was a comfort as well.Lexa sighed.Why hadn’t she just let ALIE take everyone? She’d been so focused on defeating her … Had had so little time to process ALIE’s warning about praimfaya … and so little trust in ALIE’s motives and predictions after all the destruction she’d caused …If only she’d listened.She could’ve saved everyone from the radiation … put their minds in the City of Light where they would be safe. If only she’d had more than just a few minutes to discuss the situation before she’d had to pull the lever to shut her down and-Lexa sat up in her chair, “Wait. What about the City of Light?”Aden looked back at her … and then started blinking rapidly.“What about it?” Clarke asked, “You pulled the kill switch right?”Lexa shook her head, “You cannot kill a program. Only stop it from running.”Aden leaned forward, putting his elbows on the desk and looked at Clarke, “ALIE came from Bekka’s compound … yes?”Clarke nodded, “Jaha met her there, yes … Brought the chips to Arkadia from there …”Aden nodded slowly, “If … she made the City of Light on the computers there … she would have left a backup copy there as well … Backing up her work is one of ALIE’s core commands … That … must be how she survived the first praimfaya … a backup copy at Bekka’s compound …” He glanced at Lexa and looked back at Clarke, “You were at Bekka’s lab when the death wave came … Lexa called you there over the radio … Did the main building still have electricity? Did the computers still work?”Clarke nodded, “Yeah. The computers work. The lab. The big … mansion I guess … Everything’s intact. Fully functional. The whole compound seemed to have some sort of … self-defense system.”“The hurricane defenses …,” Aden smirked and leaned back in his chair, “And the builders thought I was crazy …”“Bekka?” Lexa said quietly.Aden stood up and started pacing around the room. And then started talking to himself.“As long as the solar panels are working at the compound, the servers can keep the City of Light program running there indefinitely …,” he said as he paced, his voice a little higher all of a sudden, “That’s the solution … Make the chips there … but … with adjustments to the program … safety protocols … non-violence for those who take the chip … self-defense only maybe … Adjustments to the way the chip interacts with their minds … so that they’re still … mostly themselves … Make the chips more like the flame … ALIE’s given us the foundation … We just need to modify it … make adjustments …”Clarke and Lexa glanced at each other, and then looked back at Aden, watching him pace back and forth, talking to himself.“Once the people here take the chips, their minds can go to the City of Light whenever they wish … when they meditate … while their bodies live on here …,” Aden said, still pacing, his hands clasped behind his back, seemingly talking to the floor, “It will make their time here so much more bearable if they have that escape … And … even after the bunker fails … their minds will still be in the City of Light …”Aden stopped pacing and looked at Lexa, “We can patch in the flame … replace ALIE with Aden … A human administrator for the City of Light … enhanced with the wisdom of the flame … And once the people here take the chips … Aden could potentially lead them from anywhere … guide them … just like ALIE was able to speak to her people no matter where they were …”Lexa smiled, “Aden could live in the valley … with us … after they take the chips.”Becca looked back at Lexa through Aden’s eyes, “You’ll need to take me with you Lex … Take the flame to the island so I can show you how to boot up ALIE’s backup copy on the servers … while Aden’s running things here … how to set up the chip makers to make new chips … And … code in new safety protocols to ensure no coercion this time. Anyone who wants to take the chip … their mind will go to the City of Light. Anyone who wants to live in the bunker without the chip can live out their normal lives here till the bunker fails. Once you’ve got me on the island with you … I can adjust the programming for the chips … and for the City of Light on the computers there …”Aden shook his head a little and spoke in his normal voice, “My reign must be more established before I can rule without the flame … They need more time to get used to following orders from me … Once they accept my rule without question, I can risk giving the flame to Lexa for a little while … In … six months perhaps …”Lexa nodded. That sounded about right.“And … I need time to make preparations … to tell the people here of these developments … conditions on the ground … the possibility of going to the City of Light …,” Aden continued, “Before you make the chips, I must see whether our people would be open to taking it … or … if they are willing to live in peace with those who do decide to take it … It … will take some convincing … after what happened with ALIE last time ...”“The radio here is set to our channel now …,” Clarke offered, “You can call us when you’re ready.”Aden grinned at them, “Then consider yourselves banished. Take the natblidas and go … I will call when I need you to take the flame to Bekka’s. In the meantime, we stick with my story about all of you being on a scouting mission until my plan is further along here … Until the people here are ready for the chips.”“Aden …,” Lexa learned forward in her chair, “You don’t have to do this alone. I can stay and-““Heda Aden …,” Aden arched an eyebrow at her, “Your orders are the same. Take the natblidas to the valley. For their safety and yours. And mine. Being the only natblida is still the best way to ensure my reign for the time that is left. I will be the last commander. And we should not be wasting resources on those who no longer need to be here …”Lexa sat back in her chair, just looking at him.“No commander has ever taken out the flame by choice before …,” Aden smiled at her, “None before you. You cannot tell me truthfully that you would rather be here Lexa … That you would rather be here even as Heda than with Clarke …”Lexa pressed her lips together and looked at Clarke.Clarke raised an eyebrow back at her, “Can you?”“I …,” Lexa hesitated, and then said quietly, “No.”Aden lifted his chin, “Then it is settled.” —— The plan unfolded just as Aden said it would.He called his nightblood lieutenants into his office over the bunker’s intercom, and they came, mobbed Lexa with hugs. Clearly relieved that she had come back from her journey and was okay.There were only 4 of them, Clarke noted, not the 7 kids besides Aden that Lexa had said she had in the bunker. The others must be off somewhere. There were two teenagers, maybe 13 or 14, two a little younger, right around Madi’s age. But they were all still children really. Very official, stately children, but still … And the wildness and wonder of the valley would call to the child in each of them.As it had done even for Clarke.Clarke looked into their eyes as they each took their turn gripping her forearm, greeting her with little nods and thanking her for her work for their people. These children … Lexa’s children … She would give them warm beds and wide open spaces and full bellies. They would have a childhood. The kind of childhood that they had been denied their whole lives. They would be free of the weighty responsibility of training to be Heda. Free to swim and laugh and play and grow up in perfect safety.And they would go to school. Clarke and Lexa’s school. With Madi. She would give them the best education she could. Teach them everything that they didn’t know already, everything she knew about the valley. And they would have so much to teach her too. And about themselves in particular.And Madi would have friends.The thought made Clarke’s heart squeeze in her chest.Madi would be overjoyed.They stood by, listening carefully as Aden told the nightbloods their mission of going with Clarke and Lexa to the valley, told them that Clarke and Lexa were in charge and should be listened to and obeyed.Clarke smirked when he said it.Wondering how long that would last …He told the nightbloods to pack their things, bring the others, speak to no one of their mission, and meet them inside the decontamination room.After they left, Abby was called in. Was led in the door by a guard who was dismissed to wait outside.Clarke tried her best to conjure up all the good memories she could of her mom, tried to show her as much love as she could. It was a challenge, but she did her very best.She told herself that maybe Abby hadn’t known that extracting Luna’s bone marrow the way she had would be lethal. That maybe Abby hadn’t known it when she’d tried to take bone marrow from one of the children she’d just met either …Clarke had to tell herself that so she wouldn’t completely flip out at Abby.Abby gave her a long hug. Tears in her eyes. She didn’t seem surprised that Clarke had survived. Wasn’t surprised that Clarke was rushing off on some new adventure either. Disappointed, but not surprised. She told Clarke to be careful. Told Lexa to take good care of her.But after Abby left the office, Clarke’s face fell.“Are you ok?” Lexa asked quietly.Clarke nodded, “It’s just … I’m a mom now … and … all the stuff she did to me …,” Clarke sighed and shook her head, “I would never let those things happen to Madi. Never. And now … what she did here …”Lexa squeezed her hand and said gently, “You would do anything for Madi … to protect her … Just as Abby would do anything for you … As she has done for you. Your mother has lived a very hard life Clarke … She’s had to do so many very hard things to keep you as safe as she could … when her hand was forced … Just as you would do for Madi …”Clarke sighed and looked away.“And what she did here …” Lexa added quietly and gestured at the concrete walls around them, “Living like this … it takes such a toll on the spirit. Radiation is the biggest threat the people here face … the people your mother works day and night in the clinic to take care of … It makes sense that she would explore any possibility if she thought it could keep them safe from that threat …”Clarke nodded. It was strange to hear Lexa talk about her mom like she knew her … But of course … she probably did know her now. Had been living with Abby in the bunker for 2 years. Lexa was extending her a lot of grace … But Clarke was having trouble doing the same ...Lexa looked at her gently, “You have both been through so much … For many people … the only way they can endure a hard life is to let their heart grow cold … But not your mother … and not you … You have kept a warm heart in such cold places. It hurts so much more to keep it warm …”Clarke nodded.So many times in her life, it had felt like her heart had been twisted and torn to pieces, rubbed raw by what she’d been through, by what she’d seen people do, by what she herself had done.Lexa looked away and sighed, “You have so much strength in you. To keep your heart soft when things are hard.”Clarke squeezed her hand, “You too.” —— Clarke glanced at Aden walking several steps ahead of them to the decontamination room and whispered to Lexa, “Are we sure this isn’t just some kind of power grab? What he said about the radiation … A way for him to oust you and get rid of the other nightbloods?”Lexa shook her head, “I had already chosen Aden as my successor. We could have him show us the radiation readings … To know that it’s true … But I trust him completely.”Clarke nodded.It was so hard for her to trust people. That was part of all the damage she had. She knew that.The curse of keeping a soft heart … When people betrayed it, when the ones who had burrowed into it clawed their way right back out, trusting people got harder and harder.Lexa had been one of those people too. Betraying her at the Mountain. But at least Lexa had felt it too. Really felt it. At least she was sorry. And she had proven it. Had given Clarke her own soft heart in return to burrow into and tear apart if she wished.But Clarke had just burrowed in. And god, it was so soft and warm and good in there, she never wanted to leave.Aden, Clarke and Lexa filed into the decontamination room where the hatch to the bunker was, where the radiation suits hung along the walls, waited for the natblidas to join them.And after a while, the big metal door slowly pulled open and the four natblida lieutenants came in with backpacks on, but two of them were carrying much younger children in their arms. They were toddlers … couldn’t have been much older than 3 or 4. If that.And there was another one who was maybe 5 or 6, holding one of the older natblida’s hands.A little girl. Her blonde hair in braids. Just a few years younger than Madi had been when Clarke had first met her.Clarke’s heart fluttered in her chest at the sight of these little ones. Little natblidas. Very little natblidas. Natblidas who had been through far less trials and training and responsibility than the older ones … but who had also spent a much larger portion of their lives underground.She was going to give them such good lives. All of them. And the little ones might not even remember much of their lives in the bunker. Any memories they had of it would be buried under new memories … of sunshine and grass under their feet, memories of playing in the forest, berries and swimming. Memories of warm beds and campfires and what Clarke would teach them in school.Aden closed the big metal door behind them and then walked up the metal steps to the bunker’s hatch to open it.Lexa stepped over and took one of the toddlers in her arms, looked at Clarke and said, “Can you take Otan?” And then nodded over at the other toddler one of the older nightbloods was carrying. The little one was fast asleep, his head on his older sister’s shoulder.The girl holding Otan stepped over to Clarke and sighed at her, “He drools when he sleeps.”Clarke grinned back at her, and the two of them began the delicate operation of sliding Otan into Clarke’s arms, sliding his heavy little head onto Clarke’s shoulder.Even through her leather jacket, Clarke could feel Otan’s warmth. His soft little body like a furnace in her arms as his hot little breaths tickled against the side of her neck.“Otan can sleep through anything …” the older girl said with a little smile, “It is his gift.”Clarke smiled back at her. Her eyes getting all watery.God … she was holding a baby. A soft, warm, drooling little toddler.She had never held a child this young before … Clarke was an only child. Virtually everyone on the Ark was an only child. Little ones were rare in space. And she’d never had much time to be around children this young on the ground either.They filed up the metal steps and out of the bunker’s hatch, into the flamekeeper’s chamber, and Lexa popped on a headlamp and led the children into the tunnel.“You wish to see the readings?” Aden asked Clarke as they stood at the entrance to the tunnel watching them go.Clarke just looked back at him, Otan still fast asleep in her arms.“The flame …,” he grinned at her, “I have excellent hearing.”Clarke chewed her lip a little.Lexa trusted Aden. She should be able to trust him too …But what if the radiation really wasn’t so bad?What if the people from the bunker could come to the valley?What if the bunker people would show up there in 3 years? Or 6? Or 20?Aden smiled softly at her and put a hand on her shoulder, the one that didn’t have Otan’s heavy head on it, “You wish to know the variables as well. For your youngen. I understand. Better than most.”Clarke sighed, “Yes.”She wished she could just trust him.She really did.Aden dug through the pile of gear next to the entrance to the tunnel, opened a heavy locked box with a key from his pocket and pulled out a flashlight and a radiation meter.Clarke didn’t know a ton about radiation, but when she followed Aden through the tunnel and up to the surface, he turned on the radiation meter and showed it to her.The numbers on the little digital display screen flew up at breathtaking speed, and finally stopped at a number that ended in a bunch of 9s and blinked rapidly … It almost made Clarke wonder if that was simply as high as it could display … if there would be even more numbers if the display screen was bigger.He explained the calculations to her. The analyses he’d run, about radioactive decay and what the results meant.Clarke couldn’t follow all the complex math he was explaining … but his tone as he explained it sounded convincing …“They will be happy in the valley … I promise you,” Clarke looked back at him, “You’re gonna love it too.”He gave her a warm smile, “I look forward to it …,” and then added, “And thank you … for all that you have done for our people. The sacrifices you’ve made … Now that I have seen …”Clarke hugged Otan’s warm little body against her chest, “I tried … for a long time … I really did.”Aden nodded, “Trying … that is all that can be asked of us. All we can ever do.”Clarke sighed. She had definitely done a lot of trying. So much trying.“The valley …,” Clarke looked back at him, “It’s the only place left that I could find. Everything else is wasteland. No animals. No plants. Nothing. It would have been a challenge to protect it from us … if everyone had come … Nature needs time to heal from all this.”Aden sighed and looked at the crumbled remains of Polis, “Sending our people to the City of Light … to a place where they can heal … after everything they’ve lost … Returning the earth to itself so it can heal too … There is hope in that.”Clarke nodded. Otan started shifting a little against her and she started swaying him a little, lulling him back into sleep.“May we meet again … Clarke of the Valley,” Aden smiled at her. A Lexa smile Clarke thought … or rather, a smile from the old Lexa, measured, but one that she could see the warmth in nonetheless, as she’d always been able to decode when Lexa had given her that smile.“May we meet again,” Clarke echoed, “And thank you. For Lexa. For them. Thank you so much ...”Aden gave her a shallow nod of acknowledgment, as if he hadn’t just given her the world … literally and figuratively.They turned to see Lexa crouched down in front of the other nightbloods by the rover, speaking to them in Trig. Telling them what the rover was. Where they were going.Aden stepped over to them and the nightbloods gave him hugs. They were clearly pleased to be going somewhere new. And Clarke could see that Aden was fortifying himself with their affection for whatever came next.Lexa had no doubt left the bunker on a note of hope for their people.And Aden would be delivering the news that that life on the ground would not be an option.She didn’t envy him the task.But at least he would have something else to offer them … Something even better perhaps. A life in the City of Light. Lives without pain and struggle.Perhaps they would find peace in the news that their fight was over. That there was no land or resources for them to fight over on the ground. Nothing to struggle against except the struggles they chose to create for one another … but would hopefully decide not to.Clarke hoped that for Aden’s sake they would decide not to. That they would accept this outcome with whatever nobility and grace they had. Peacefully.Lexa opened the back door of the rover and the natblidas piled in, along with the little one that Lexa had had in her arms.Lexa came over to Aden and pulled him into a long hug.Clarke stepped over to the rover to give them a little privacy. But she could still hear them talking in Trig. Heard Lexa try to give him some advice but Aden just grinned at her and shook his head, answered in Trig, “I know everything you want to tell me …” and tapped the side of his head, “Thank you. For protecting us … all of us … all those years … And not just our lives … us …” Aden put his hand over his heart when he said it.Lexa pulled him into her arms again.And Aden squeezed her tight, “I will call when things are ready here … and … to see how they are doing. And you.”Lexa leaned back a little and sighed, “I am so proud of you Aden.”Aden gave her a soft smile, “My sis taught me well.”Sister.Lexa sighed, put her hand over the back of his neck, leaned her forehead against his, and said quietly, “Stay safe. And when this is done, you will come back to me in the valley. That is an order.”Aden leaned back at her and grinned, “Sha Heda. If not in this life, then the next. We will meet again.”He pulled Lexa into another hug.Otan shifted in Clarke’s arms a little, nuzzled into her neck with his little nose, and Clarke rocked him back and forth a little, shushing him.He was going to wake up in a new world.To a new future.A new life in the valley.Lexa pressed the headlamp she’d used to guide the natblidas out of the tunnel into Aden’s hand and stepped over to Clarke, wiping tears off her cheeks. She reached out her arms and Clarke handed over Otan.“I will ride in the back with them …,” Lexa smiled at her, “… to prepare them … Tell them of Madi.”“She’s gonna be so happy …,” Clarke grinned at her. Grinned for Madi, for Lexa, for the natblidas, for the future that lay ahead of them, at the sight of Lexa holding a sleeping toddler in her arms.“They all will …,” Lexa smiled, “And maybe you most of all.”Clarke nodded, still grinning at her, “Maybe so.” —— Clarke drove her now huge family back to the valley through the desert and eventually, through the darkness too. The headlights of the rover reflecting off the sand dunes.Aden had called immediately after they’d left just to make sure the radio was working, and the natblidas seemed both thrilled by the idea that they could still talk to Aden, and completely baffled by the radio itself.Clarke explained how to use it and handed the mic back to them and they took turns standing in the gap behind the two front seats, holding down the button on the mic and talking to him. Aden reminded them to be good, and Clarke could hear the smile in his voice.She was glad to know that the natblidas and Lexa would be able to talk to Aden, and that he would be able to talk to them while they were apart.Not being able to talk to Lexa when she was in the bunker had been so difficult. The silence had given Clarke’s anxiety over Lexa’s safety way too much fuel.Just being able to talk to her would have given her so much comfort, and she was glad that Lexa and the natblidas would have that comfort now.She listened to Lexa tell the nightbloods about the valley as she drove, about the importance of living there very carefully, telling them that the valley and every creature there was sacred. That they were the keepers of the valley and must protect it. She listened to Lexa patiently answer the flood of questions they had about it, heard the measured but definitely still there excitement in their voices. She listened to Lexa tell them about Madi too … that she was the Kliron Heda. They had lots of questions about Madi as well … She heard Lexa tell them Madi was a natblida like them … was their sister. That she had survived all by herself after the radiation and had offered to share the valley, her home, with Clarke when she had come. Had taught Clarke the skills she needed to survive.They seemed to approve of Madi’s actions.“Compassion,” one of the natblidas said.“Yes …,” Lexa’s smiling voice replied, “One of the three pillars. Madi has them all. Who can tell me the other two?”Clarke grinned to herself as they answered, “Wisdom”, “Strength”. Grinned at this other side of Lexa she was going to get to see. Lexa with her children … her other kids. The ones whose lives she had been a part of for years, teaching them, looking after them, working to protect them, being their mom.She’d get to see how Lexa parented them. Would need to learn from Lexa how to be the kind of parent they needed, what they were used to. All their little idiosyncrasies.Clarke knew she’d done a good job with Madi … But these kids would be different than Madi … They’d had a very different upbringing than Madi … Way more structured … Clarke could meet them halfway on that. But she wanted to approach things carefully with them too … Lexa was their parent after all. And she was … well … basically a stranger to them …Lexa would have a lot of advice for her ... Of that, Clarke was certain.Long ago, Lexa had given her a ton of unsolicited advice about being a leader. And now, Lexa would no doubt have a ton more advice for her about how to mom these natblidas.But Clarke was up for the challenge.When they arrived at the valley, their little troop walked the trail back to the village with flashlights from the rover, Clarke leading the way through the darkness, a flashlight in her hand, Lexa carrying the radio from the rover in her arms.The oldest kids carried the younger ones, who wouldn’t be able to keep up otherwise on their little legs.The kids could barely see anything of the valley in just the light of the flashlights, and Clarke wished she could give them that beautiful view of whole valley.But the kids seemed pleased just to see the trail and the sides of the trees lining the path ahead of them in the small circle of light from the flashlight.One of the older girls was answering Otan’s sleepy questions about where they were, and he squealed when she answered that they were with Lexa.God … Clarke’s heart could barely take that.It was dark, not so late, but Clarke was pretty wiped out emotionally from the day. From having had to drive Lexa back to the bunker, thinking that she was probably going to have to leave her there and return to the valley without her, from the entire conversation with Aden, from learning the situation for the people in the bunker, from hearing Lexa insist on staying, from hearing Aden insist that she go, from learning that she was going to return to the valley with 7 of Lexa’s children, from learning that the valley would be safe. From seeing her mom. From seeing the little natblidas. From holding Otan.She had left Madi with a ridiculous amount of food before they’d left, just in case she had needed to stay over at the bunker with Lexa for a little while.Madi had rolled her eyes at the huge pile of rabbit jerky and other snacks Clarke had laid out on the table for her before they’d left.Madi was more than capable of feeding herself after all.But Clarke had known that saying goodbye to Lexa was going to be so rough for Madi.And it had been. Both Madi and Lexa had been crying.And Clarke had wanted to give Madi every comfort she could. Including rabbit jerky, Madi’s favorite food, and a bunch of her other favorite treats from the valley, even snacks from Becca’s house that she usually only broke out on special occasions.Clarke was so glad she’d left Madi with that ridiculously huge amount of food now.The kids were probably quite hungry.Clarke couldn’t be sure though … because if they were, not a single one of them mentioned it as they walked the trail.That might be the biggest parenting challenge right there.Madi was pretty upfront about what she wanted and needed.Which was easy enough to work with.But these kids … if they’d been raised anything like Lexa had … then they’d probably been taught to be more stoic. Not to complain.Otan maybe wasn’t quite fully socialized in that way though … because when they got to the village, he started loudly whispering to his sister about when they would eat.“Clarke …,” Lexa said from the back of their little caravan, “Perhaps you wish to go in first … while we wait here? To tell Madi?”“Yeah …,” Clarke grinned, and handed the flashlight to Reva, the oldest girl, who had been carrying Otan beside her.Clarke walked the rest of the way to their house by memory in the dark.There wasn’t a campfire burning out in front of it.She could see the flickering glow of a fire through the windows of the house though … Madi must have decided to use the indoor fireplace.Clarke stepped up the front steps and creaked open the front door.There wasn’t a single candle lit in the place.Madi was wrapped in a blanket, sitting in front of the warm glow of the fire.She had her chin in her hand and was looking down at the chessboard Lexa had made them. Was looking at the arrangement of the pieces from the last game she and Lexa had been in the middle of playing.And she looked miserable.The massive pile of food Clarke had left was right beside her, with a serious chunk of it now gone.“Hey …,” Madi mumbled, not even looking up from the chessboard.And Clarke’s heart broke a little.Ugh.Poor Madi …Sitting in front of the indoor fireplace Lexa had made for them, sitting in front of the chessboard Lexa had made them, compartmentalizing her sadness over Lexa leaving by focusing on her next move against Lexa on the board … and eating the rest of her feelings … covering them in a thick layer of rabbit jerky.She really was Clarke’s child in that respect ...God … Madi was gonna flip out when she heard that Lexa and the other natblidas were outside.Clarke sat down next to her in front of the fire, put her hand on the blanket covering Madi’s knee.“Hey …,” Clarke started gently.“You’re home early …,” Madi mumbled, her eyes all puffy and red from crying, still looking down at the board, “She ok?”Clarke grinned, “Ask her yourself.”Madi’s gaze snapped up to Clarke.“She came back?” Madi looked at her hopefully, her eyes all watery and eager in the firelight.Clarke nodded, gave her a warm smile, her heart feeling all kinds of fluttery at making her girl happy, at how much Madi loved Lexa.Clarke leaned in a little closer and whispered, “And she’s not alone.”Madi’s eyebrows raised.Clarke reached out a hand and ran her fingers through Madi’s disheveled hair.“The natblidas are here …,” Clarke said quietly, “Seven of them anyway.”Madi’s mouth fell open and then her whole face broke out in a huge smile.“Holy shit …,” Madi grinned.“Yeah …,” Clarke chuckled, “Holy shit.”Madi stood up and the blanket fell off and then she bounded off to her room, apparently completely naked under her blanket and called over her shoulder, “Gonna get dressed!”Clarke chuckled to herself. Their house was a shame free zone. Nudity wasn’t a big deal … but Clarke was a little surprised that Madi had opted for nudity when she’d had the house to herself.Clarke went around the little house lighting candles and putting a bunch more food out on the table. Pulled over every chair she could find along the sides of it.Even with the chairs by the little desks in Clarke and Madi’s rooms, there still weren’t enough, only 6 total around the table.And they had 10 people now.Three pretty little ones but …Oh fuck … they needed more beds in the house … and … rooms.Madi came back to the living room of the house, fully dressed in her favorite clothes, her hair brushed now, and walked with Clarke out the front door and onto the porch holding a candle.Lexa and her natblidas were waiting just outside.“Kliron Heda …,” Lexa greeted her.Madi grinned back at her.“I ask your permission for the natblidas to stay in the village,” Lexa added.Madi gave an official little nod, “You’re welcome here.”The natblidas filed into the house after Madi, set down their little ones and their flashlights, slid their packs off their backs by the door and followed Madi over to the fireplace. Took their seats on the floor in front of it and Madi offered them food from her pile.Maybe the not enough chairs at the table wouldn’t be a problem after all …Clarke brought over several full canteens from the pantry of emergency supplies in the kitchen. She’d never imagined that she’d have to use them for a hospitality emergency. She smiled at the thought.The older kids opened the canteens and handed them over to the little ones first, got them started eating the snacks before eating a little themselves.The kids introduced themselves to Madi. Reva, the oldest girl, the one who had carried Otan to the house and was maybe 14. Penn, who was probably around 14 too, the oldest boy, the tallest and biggest among them, who had carried the 6 year old into the house, but who spoke quietly when he said his name. Amelia, who was right around Madi’s age. Xander, who looked to be about Madi’s age too. Callie, the six year old, who said her name through a bite of rabbit jerky, and Otan and Tris, the two toddlers who were introduced by the other kids as they chewed with little grins on their faces.Lexa just watched these introductions, watched her children thank Madi for the food, but didn’t take any herself, just grinned at her children as they ate in the firelight.Clarke was surprised at just how cool Madi was playing things given how totally thrilled by their presence she knew Madi was.But Madi new the drill. She’d been through this twice before, when Clarke had come to the valley, and then Lexa. Taking things slow. Not overwhelming new people.Madi did encourage them to eat more though. The natblidas barely took anything to eat. But Madi handed them more. And Clarke was proud of her for noticing that they hadn’t eaten enough, for being a good host.“We should bring some beds in, from the houses next door …,” Clarke smiled at Lexa.Lexa nodded, but didn’t say anything, just grinned back at Clarke, her heart clearly so full. —- That night, the older nightbloods and Madi helped Clarke and Lexa carry over mattresses and bedding from the village houses next door. Callie, the 6 year old, holding the flashlight to help.They moved the furniture around in Clarke and Madi’s house and laid out all the beds together on the floor in front of the fireplace, so it looked like one gigantic bed.The natblidas changed into their underclothes, got settled in their beds, And Lexa tucked in the two littles ones, wrapping a blanket around them when they cuddled up together. Clarke watching with her arm around Madi’s shoulder.Lexa looked up at Madi, “Tomorrow … with your permission, we would like to gather the morning meal for you and Clarke … in thanks.”Madi grinned back at her and gave a nod.Clarke wanted to say that that really wasn’t necessary … They had more food in their pantry yet, and she wanted to make breakfast for the kids to make them feel welcome, give them time to just hang out and adjust to their new environment.But perhaps Lexa’s natblidas weren’t capable of just hanging out … If they were anything like their mom, they probably needed to be productive all the time. And … maybe Lexa wanted to teach them to be gracious guests. To give back and not just take from their hosts, to be useful.Clarke didn’t want them to feel like guests at all though.Wanted them to feel at home.But that would happen in time.Lexa made her way over to Clarke and whispered to her, “I would like to sleep out here … with them.”“Of course …,” Clarke grinned back at her, “You want to be there … in case they need anything. And … to make them feel comfortable in a new place.”Lexa nodded.They were both moms. They understood.“And you can do anything you like here … You know that,” Clarke grinned at her, “This is your house.”Lexa grinned back at her, squeezed her hand, “Our house.”And then she went to make sure all her natblidas had all the covers they needed before crawling into bed herself among them.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Clarke woke up to the feeling of Lexa’s soft kiss on her cheek.Her eyes fluttered open to see Lexa smiling beside her on the bed.“I’m about to take them out …,” Lexa grinned at her, “Would you like to come?”Clarke grinned back at her.She definitely wanted to see the natblidas get their first good look at the valley in the daylight.Clarke threw back the covers and got dressed quickly, pulled on her hiking boots.She expected to go wake up Madi next. Madi was a late sleeper, like her. But Madi was already up and dressed, and …appeared to be having some sort of …meeting with the other natblidas?Lexa clapped her hands twice, “Natblidas.”They all hopped to their feet and stood at attention … even Otan and Tris, the toddlers, their little hands clasped behind their backs.Madi got to her feet a lot slower than the rest.Her posture all relaxed and casual.The difference between her and the other natblidas could not have been more obvious.Clarke wanted Madi to fit in with the other nightbloods, but she was also kinda proud of the fact that Madi was so casual … that she didn’t just jump up to follow orders … even though … that … would have been … convenient … sometimes …Still. Madi was a natblida too …They were all natblidas actually …“Kliron Heda …,” Lexa looked at Madi, the straps of the bunch of canteens she was now carrying on her shoulders, a burlap sack in one of her hands, “I ask that …”Madi waved a hand, waving away Lexa’s formality, “You may do as you wish … You are all welcome here.”Lexa nodded and turned to lead them to the door.They all stepped out onto the porch and Clarke watched the natblidas eyes sparkle as they took in the sight of the village. The sunlight. The forest surrounding the place. The sounds of the birds greeting the morning.“This is the last green place on Earth that we know of …,” Lexa told them, “The last of the birds … the trees … the grasses and creatures. We must be very careful here. Everything is precious. Sacred.”The natblidas all nodded. Affirming that they heard and understood.Even the littlest ones, Otan and Tris.Penn picked up Tris and Reva picked up Otan, and the 9 of them followed Madi out to one of the little trails into the forest, Madi explaining the places that the trail led to to the others like a teacher as they walked, Amelia and Xander walking beside her.Clarke watched Otan and Tris squirm in Reva and Penn’s arms to look around at the forest as their troop made their way down the trail.Clarke was kinda desperate to hold the little ones, but it was right that their siblings should.Otan and Tris were in a totally new place. So different from the bunker they’d lived in for the majority of their short lives. And there were new people with them now that they didn’t know. Clarke and Madi.The familiarity of their siblings was what they needed right now.It was a sunny day, a bright blue sky overhead, and Madi walked them through the forest to the field of berry bushes where Lexa had first seen Clarke after coming to the valley.When the reached the bushes, Madi explained how to tell which berries were ripe and ready to eat, to watch out for the thorns, to not to take too many (even though there were tons of berry bushes around them). Then she explained probably just about everything else she knew about berries, the growing season, the different kinds of berries in the valley.It was … excessive, Clarke thought. These kids were no doubt hungry for their breakfast by now … But the natblidas seemed quite interested in what Madi had to say. Asked questions. Like this was one of their lessons. And Madi was clearly proud of the fact that she knew the answers … She was a good teacher … just like her mom … like her moms … Clarke teared up a little at the thought …Lexa crushed one of the berries in her hands, showed them the little seeds inside, explained how to bury the seeds in dirt that was like the dirt they were standing on now to grow more berry bushes, so there would always be enough.And then all the natblidas got to work picking.After a little while, Madi came over to Clarke and took a seat beside her on the ground, handed Clarke a berry.“They’re … interesting …,” Madi gave her a little smile.Clarke smiled back at her, “They grew up very different than you …”Madi nodded and then arched an eyebrow at her, “They brought a lot of knives. Like … a lot a lot …”Clarke sighed. She’d expect nothing less from them.Madi had a knife too. But just the one. And only for the most mundane practical stuff.Madi had had several knives when they’d first met though, when she was 8. Had a few knives on her person, a cache of spears too.But she was down to just the one knife now. Barely used the spears anymore, since Lexa had taught her to how to make better snares and use the fish-catching basket in the lake.“It’s very dangerous … being Heda …,” Clarke explained, “People could challenge them at anytime if they didn’t like the decisions they made. Could kill them so someone else would be Heda. They had to be ready for that … train for it …”Madi nodded slowly, and then said, “Lexa has a lot of scars … When we swam in the lake … I saw …”“Yeah …,” Clarke sighed, “She does.”“A lot of cool tattoos too …,” Madi grinned, “I wish I had tattoos.”Clarke hummed to herself.She kinda wished she had some cool tattoos herself. Lexa’s were so beautiful.But Clarke had no idea how the Grounders gave each other those tattoos.Pretty much every adult Grounder she’d met seemed to have them. Usually they were the kinds of tattoos that were pretty intimidating … big black or blue ones on their faces or necks … like Lincoln’s, Indra’s and Gustus’.Lots of big black tribal swirls on muscly arms and shoulders as well.But they were usually quite beautiful too. Artistic. Symmetrical. Sometimes they were of animals, of trees. Special people and places. All of them clearly made with great care and attention to detail.Even the scar designs Azgeda had on their faces were beautiful and artistic.Though Clarke suspected that she wouldn’t be able to stomach seeing how they gave each other those scar designs.Roan had had them. Nia. Ontari. The Azgeda ambassador.None of the natblidas had them.Clarke wondered if any of the kids were Azgeda.Or if, like Ontari, Azgeda had opted to hide all their natblidas from Lexa.Lexa’s kids wouldn’t really be Azgeda even if they were from the Ice Nation originally though … not if they’d been brought to Polis and raised by the fleimkepas.The natblidas came over to them and laid out their haul of berries on the sack Lexa had brought. And then they picked through them, sliding over the best, most ripe ones they’d been taught to identify toward Clarke and Madi on the sack.Clarke thanked them and the natblidas arranged themselves around the remaining pile of berries to eat with them.“Would you show them the fishing trap next?” Lexa asked Madi.Madi grinned at her and nodded.They didn’t usually have fish for breakfast, and still had plenty of dried food to eat at the house. But Clarke could see that Lexa was keen to spend this day teaching her natblidas about the valley, showing them how to be useful.And honestly, they did need to start gearing up to feed all these new mouths. More fish traps. Set out more snares for wild game. Expand the garden and start cultivating more of the plants from the valley.Having Lexa at the village had barely required any extra effort.And Lexa had basically taken on the responsibility of gathering food for the 3 of them since she’d been there.But they were a troop of 10 now. Adjustments would be necessary.Clarke would have to search through the village houses for more plates and bowls.More … everything really.It wouldn’t be a problem.She had a notebook detailing everything in each of the houses in the village. And there were dozens of houses.Her and Madi had barely needed anything from the other houses. Their house seemed to have enough stuff for at least five people. Had lots of things in the cupboards that they had never even used.Maybe they should move into the biggest house in the village?Clarke loved her little house. But the kids probably wouldn’t want to sleep on their floor in the main room forever. Would want their own bedrooms.And Clarke’s house only had two.Or maybe the kids would want their own houses?Eventually they would for sure.Reva and Penn probably did already. They were already teenagers.Were probably only 6 or 7 years younger than Clarke.Clarke couldn’t really imagine the kids living in separate houses though. They were such a coordinated little unit. And the oldest ones seemed to be used to looking after Tris and Otan.Clarke would be more than happy to take that responsibility off their hands though.She grinned at Tris as she licked berry juice off her little fingers.Ugh.She was so adorable with her chubby little cheeks.Otan too.They all were. So polite and well behaved as they asked Madi and Lexa question after question as they ate. So attentive to the answers.And Clarke could see their personalities starting to come out a little too.She could see that Otan was a bit of a bruiser. Stole berries from his siblings. That Penn indulged him, that Reva shook her head at Otan and told him to mind himself. That Callie, their 6 year old, just kinda went with the flow, watched what everyone else was doing. That Amelia had already taken a liking to Madi, gave her more of her berries. That Xander was maybe the least focused of them. More interested in looking around at the valley than eating. And after she’d eaten her fill, Tris seemed most interested in taking her remaining berries apart to look at the seeds.With the first part of their little breakfast finished, their troop headed off to the lake.Clarke shooting little grins at Lexa as they walked down the forest path.At this dream they were living in their perfect paradise with their kids.Clarke wanted to take her hand, but Lexa’s was carrying Tris.And also … Clarke didn’t actually know how much the natblidas knew about their relationship.Probably very little.What would they think of that?Their Heda had a houman now.Had had one for a while now really …But it made Clarke’s heart feel all warm and fuzzy to know that these kids would be raised by two people so completely in love with each other. That they would be raised seeing that kind of love.Clarke’s parents had loved each other too. Her dad brought out the soft parts in her mom, who could be so hard and strict sometimes … Just like she brought out the softness in Lexa.She liked the idea that she was like her dad in that respect.Though Lexa was nothing like her mom … I mean … maybe a little … in some ways kinda … could be really hard when she nee-…Clarke shook her head and decided to just let that thought go … just let it float away into the cloudless sky above them …Clarke watched the kids marvel at the sight of the lake. She pointed out the minnows in the water to Tris and Otan as they stood on the shore, which they both seemed completely entranced by. Meanwhile Madi pulled their fish trapping basket out of the water and took it to the other kids on the shore, explained how it worked to them.Penn in particular seemed fascinated by it. Turned it around and around in his hands, looking at it from all the angles.Madi looked over at Lexa, “I didn’t bait it yesterday. And we’ve got more people … I think we need to spear fish today.”Lexa nodded and told the natblidas, “The traps are better … But spearfishing today is ok.”“With traps we can let the fish that are full of eggs go …,” Madi explained, “So there’s always enough fish … I’ll show you how to tell if a fish has eggs the next time we trap one.”Lexa gave Madi a smiling nod.Lexa must have shown Madi how to check for that, Clarke thought. One of the so many things Lexa had taught Madi, and that Madi would now get to teach the other natblidas.Clarke liked seeing Madi like this, so competent and confident explaining things to the other kids.When it had been just the two of them, they fell into the parent-child dynamic most of the time. Though Clarke tried to respect Madi’s forest girl wildness and independent streak ….But now, she’d get to see the other sides of Madi that didn’t get to come out when they’d been alone together in the valley.Madi took Penn, Amelia and Xander to the house to get the other two fish traps, bait for them, towels, and spears they could use to fish. Lexa was still explaining the fish trap to Callie on the shore.Reva joined Clarke on the shore, sat down beside her to watch Otan and Tris kick water at each other in the shallows.“This place … it’s amazing …,” Reva sighed, “When we saw Polis … I thought … everything was gone.”“Me too …,” Clarke looked back at her, “And it is. All except for here. It’s all just miles and miles of desert now.”Reva nodded, looked out at the water, “My people … Podakru I mean … they had lakes. Are highly skilled at fishing.”“Have you ever fished?” Clarke asked.Reva nodded, “Heda … Lexa took us out to show us how … camping, fishing, hunting. Living off the land.”Clarke nodded. That knowledge was about to become very useful to them now.“It’s so quiet here …,” Reva added, “Peaceful. The bunker has so many people …”“Yeah …,” Clarke looked out at the lake.The natblidas didn’t know what Aden had told them about the fate of the people in the bunker yet. That was a conversation Lexa would have to have with them when the time came.That would be a transition for them.They had been training to lead their people their whole lives. But that wasn’t the future that lay ahead for them anymore.And as much as it would be a weight off their shoulders in some respects, it was a weight that they had gotten used to, had been training and studying to carry their whole lives. The life’s purpose they had all been handed.Living without that weight, finding a new purpose, would be a transition for them. For the older ones in particular, Reva, Penn, Amelia and Xander.It had been a transition for Clarke too.After looking after her people for so long on the ground, and not nearly as long as the natblidas had been training to, and then being alone in Becca’s house, visiting the remains of Arkadia and Trikru and searching the wastelands by herself, even when she’d first arrived in the valley and thought she was alone, had been such a transition …She’d gotten used to having the heavy weight of leadership on her shoulders. For the 100, when dealing with Mount Weather, being Skykru’s ambassador … That weight of responsibility had just settled into her bones. And she was good at it. Had felt strangely adrift without that weight … purposeless.Her people had always needed things from her … when she’d been a medical trainee on the Ark … from the moment the 100 had landed on the ground … They’d kept her constantly busy. And … Clarke had liked the feeling … Being useful. Being so indispensable to them. Being listened to and respected for her ideas.And then, after all that, she’d ended up totally alone. That part of her brain that had been so preoccupied with planning for all those other people and protecting them and dealing with politics and negotiating deals for them … just … wasn’t necessary anymore.When she’d met Madi in the valley, had started taking care of her, being responsible for someone else again had felt good … just enough responsibility to keep her mind occupied, to give her a purpose again, a sense of accomplishment.Maybe looking after Tris and Otan and Callie would help give the older kids that sense of purpose too.They certainly seemed good at it, seemed devoted to looking after the younger ones.And at the moment, learning about the valley was giving them purpose.And there would always be gardening to do, food to gather, cleaning up to do.Madi, Penn, Amelia and Xander returned from the village with towels, with the other two fish trapping baskets, bait for them, and fishing spears.Madi showed them how she baited the fish trapping baskets, put a few rocks in each of them so they’d sink to the bottom, and then dropped them in her luckiest trapping spots.They took the fishing spears over to Lexa and Lexa walked out into the water and showed the older kids how to spear fish. Well … not just the older ones … Callie was with them too … who at 6, Clarke highly doubted would be able to spear a fish … But then again, with these kids, you never knew what they might be capable of.Tris and Otan sat down beside Clarke on the shore and watched Lexa silently and attentively too.After the lesson, Penn and Reva each drifted along the shore with their spears and found fishing spots for themselves.Amelia, Madi, Xander and Callie stayed not so far from Lexa.Madi only had 5 fishing spears total, so they mostly just watched Lexa fish, took turns with the other 2 spears between the four of them.And it wasn’t long before there were a pile of fat fish beside Clarke on the shore. Enough for their next meal and dinner.Tris and Otan were completely fascinated by the big squirmy fish.Honestly, all the kids were, except for Madi, who said the prayer from the Ark in Trig, and then swiftly and humanely killed each one with her knife.Nobody squirmed at the sight except for Clarke, who had never really gotten over her discomfort with killing animals.Lexa demonstrated how to carry the fish by their gill flaps and then the whole troop walked back to the house, where they then got a lesson on how to clean fish from Lexa and Madi, and were told all the parts of the fish that were edible.The toddlers were already getting tired by then and Xander put them in Madi’s bed for a nap.And Xander returned to wake them up later too, when the natblidas had finished setting up the campfire and preparing the meal for everyone with vegetables from the garden and the fish they’d caught.Clarke had showed them where all the pots and pans were, and they’d prepared the same fish soup Madi had made Lexa the night she’d arrived, but with more veggies in it. It was a practical choice. The soup could easily be reheated for dinner.And the natblidas seemed just as smitten with the food as Lexa had been when she’d first arrived. Drank from their bowls with slow appreciation.Except for Otan, who just guzzled his soup despite Reva’s objections.Madi proudly announced that it wouldn’t be long until the corn from the field Louwoda Kliron Kru had planted (and that was now growing halfway wild) would be ready to eat, which everyone seemed quietly pleased to hear.The natblidas cleaned everything up and then Lexa announced that it was time for training.Everyone hopped up to follow her, including Tris and Otan.Madi shot a look at Clarke and Clarke gave her a nod. And then Madi ran off to join them.She’d already let Lexa train Madi a little, and she really couldn’t deny Madi this chance to hang out with the other natblidas.Clarke didn’t follow them though.She went back inside the house and cracked open her notebook listing all the stuff in the other houses in the village. Went around collecting all the things from the other houses that might be useful for their brood of 8. Smiling to herself the whole time.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It took barely any time at all for their now very full household to fall into a rhythm.Chores. Breakfast. Morning training for the kids. Meditation. School. Afternoon training, which was usually followed by a hike out into the valley, or sometimes swimming. More chores. Dinners around the campfire together.Lexa gave them all the structure the natblidas had been used to having, schedules, responsibilities.As they waited for word from Aden during the first month that he was solidifying his authority, preparing to reveal the situation to the people in the bunker and present then with the option of taking the chip, Lexa made a second chessboard for the kids to play checkers on. Told them stories around the campfire at night. And as the days and weeks passed, Clarke told them stories too, about life in space on the Ark, about space in general and how people had gotten into space in the first place, which the natblidas seemed quite interested in. And had a lot of questions about. Told them stories from her favorite books that she’d read on the Ark to entertain them.Clarke and Lexa led “school” together, which became a whole family affair of everyone sitting in the main room of the house learning from and discussing Clarke’s journals about the village and the valley.Discussing how they might best to care for the valley so that it could grow and expand and make more green space for plants and creatures on the earth.The older kids took turns helping Callie, Tris and Otan with their reading and writingAnd all the kids had chores that they rotated through. Clarke suspected that was so no one got stuck with a job they hated for too long … though it was hard to tell, because Clarke never heard a single one of the kids complain about anything.One of the jobs the older kids rotated through was looking after Tris and Otan.Another chore was being in charge of setting up snares in the woods, baiting and checking the fish trapping basket traps that most of the kids had made.Another chore was stocking firewood and kindling.Another was gardening.Another was making the fires.Laundry.Cooking.Cleaning up after everyone.Filling the water jugs in the house with clean water from the village’s rainwater tanks.Making sure the bees had fresh water … which was the easiest job, but also the one that Clarke suspected was everyone’s least favorite, even though they had all kinds of extra layers of clothes to wear to protect from stings after Lexa’s experience setting up the bee colony’s boxes.And as Clarke had expected, the natblidas proved themselves to be incredibly industrious, even in their “free time”, when they weren’t doing their official chores.In a month, they’d made the garden four times bigger and filled it with more edible plants. Surrounded it with netting to keep out the rabbits.In two months they’d pulled out the weeds and wild grasses that had infested much of Louwoda Kliron Kru’s corn field so that more water and nutrients from the soil would get to the corn plants.It was a big job, even with the tools in Louwoda Kliron Kru’s barn, but not so big a job with so many hands to help. Honestly, Clarke and Madi hadn’t done much at all with the corn field besides pull ears off the stalks when they were ripe enough for eating. Whatever ears of corn they didn’t eat just fell into the dirt and grew more corn the next season.But Lexa, Xander and Reva had been experimenting with a bunch of different things they could do with the corn. They figured out how to make biscuit-like things that they cooked on a flat stone by the fire. Made a sort of warm corn porridge that was good for breakfast.Corn quickly became super important, and Lexa, Reva and Penn were figuring out what else could be done with it. Were investigating the tools and metal equipment in Louwoda Kliron Kru’s barn. How to use them. Were working on figuring out what the sacks and sacks of hard kernels in the barn were for given that the corn field seemed to replenish itself.Penn figured how to make solar showers and had set up two of them in the village. They were very simple. Just buckets painted black with tree sap that they could fill with water, that heated up from the sun, with holes in the bottom and a cover over the holes … The buckets could be hoisted up by their handle with a length of rope slung over a tree branch that was tied down to keep the bucket high up, then all they had to do was slide the cover off the bottom of the bucket and stand underneath while the warm water rained down.The showers weren’t entirely necessary of course. They could bathe in the tub or in the lake. But it was extremely pleasant, and very convenient since they could fill the buckets from the village’s big metal rainwater tanks and save themselves the hassle of filling a whole bathtub or having to make a trip to the lake to wash off.Callie turned out to be the biggest hero though.She had disappeared on one of their hikes, and then reappeared saying that she’d spotted a chicken and tracked it back to its roost … and had found a lot more chickens there.Clarke had found the big chicken pen in the village when she’d gotten to the valley, but a few holes had been dug out in the dirt along the sides and all the nests in the covered section were empty. She’d just assumed that the chickens were long gone.Chickens became everyone’s top priority the week of Callie’s discovery.They fortified the chicken pen, buried flat stones around it so the chickens couldn’t dig out and escape again. Then returned with burlap sacks from the barn to the place where Callie had found their roost.They came home with more than a dozen chickens they’d caught. Just a fraction of the chickens they’d seen. And in days they were having eggs for breakfast.All the chickens needed to eat were the scraps and leftover green stalks from the garden veggies they cooked for dinner.One of their chickens turned out to be a rooster, and soon enough they even had chicks.And in 3 months they were having eggs for breakfast and sometimes chicken for dinner.Much to everyone’s delight.They gave Callie the first and best piece every time they had chicken.By then, Amelia and Madi were practically inseparable.Even did their chores together, splitting each other’s tasks to get them done faster.Originally, Lexa had said Madi was exempt from chores since she was the Kliron Heda, but Madi had insisted. Which Clarke was proud of her for.It hadn’t taken long at all for Madi to fit in with the other natblidas. She was still clearly different than them. More relaxed. Joked around with them more in that quiet way Lexa joked around, but they seemed to like it. Seemed to like that Madi knew so much about the valley, and had fun teaching her what they knew too. Helped explain things to her in school, helped her improve her fighting techniques when she trained with them.The kids didn’t know it yet … but they’d probably never need those fighting skills now that they wouldn’t be returning to the bunker ... But they always looked so happy when they came back from training with Lexa … sweaty and grinning at each other from ear to ear … And Clarke figured it was good for them to know how to defend themselves … just in case ...Lexa’s plan of giving the kids lots of structure seemed to have been working. They all had their tasks, their training and chores, their hiking and swimming, and good food in the mornings and evenings.By 3 months in, Lexa and Reva had figured out how to rehydrate the dried corn kernels in the sacks in the barn, which meant they could have corn year round. They just needed to slice off the kernels on the dried cobs that they hadn’t eaten when the harvesting season was over, put them in the sun to dry out fully, and then put the dried kernels in sacks to be rehydrated later in soups or porridge, or rehydrate them to make into corn biscuits later.Honestly, by then, Clarke felt like she was living on a fully functional farm. Had taken a giant leap in civilization from hunter gatherer to farmer.Not that she actually did much of the farming.They said Clarke being the teacha was already a big job, and Lexa and the kids seemed to have pretty much everything else covered. The fishing, the hunting, the gardening, tending to the corn.But Clarke joined them in whatever projects they were working on to help, got herself a permanent shift on breakfast duty.She’d gotten to know the natblidas a lot better too, especially through teaching them in school. But she spent time with each of them individually as well. Found things she had common with each of them, listened to what they had to say. They were all so smart. So perceptive and hardworking. Loved to learn and read and figure things out.They seemed to like her too, as far as she could tell. Especially the little ones, who were more open about showing her that they liked her. She wasn’t at mom-level yet, but Clarke felt like she was maybe a well-liked aunt.She missed Lexa though.Three months in, Lexa was still sleeping on the floor with the natblidas in the main room of the house. Always had at least one kid in her arms or by her side. And usually more than one.Lexa had been pushing herself so hard to get the farm up and running, overseeing everything, spending time with the kids, training with them, figuring out corn, preparing lessons for them and reading Clarke’s journals at night so she’d be ready to discuss them with the kids in class the next day.Lexa hadn’t taken a single day off in those three months, and neither had the natblidas.Which was a real pity … because seeing Lexa running the farm, seeing her take such good care of them all, being such an amazing mom to all the kids had been … doing things to Clarke.But Lexa was so focused on the kids and the farm that she’d barely made time for a few sneaky makeout sessions with Clarke before she went back to work.Other than that, Clarke had had to survive off of Lexa’s occasional glances and little grins.Honestly, it was like she was back in Polis all over again, watching Lexa a little too intently at coalition meetings when she was serving as Skykru’s ambassador … Eyes trailing after her whenever she walked by.Only now, she was staring at her from across a table where 8 children were seated for breakfast, dragging her spoon out of her mouth much more slowly than necessary whenever Lexa glanced in her direction from whatever conversation she was having with the kids. Her fingers just itching to take Lexa’s hand when they sat around the campfire at dinner.Clarke knew Lexa was just trying to make sure that their home was well set up to support 10 people, was making sure that the kids were all adjusting well to this big change in their lives before she introduced any new ones … Was giving them all the structure and training and lessons and attention they were used to in their lives before they’d come to the valley.Was trying to keep things as familiar and comfortable for them as possible.And … the natblidas didn’t know about the two of them being a couple. That was gonna be yet another big change for them.But Lexa was going to tell them someday, right?Because Clarke kinda needed that to happen soon.One night, when the kids were sprawled out in the living room, playing chess and checkers, reading and talking with each other, Clarke dragged Lexa by the hand out onto the porch. Closed the door, and then shoved Lexa’s back against it with her whole body and kissed her, long and slow. Slid her tongue into Lexa’s mouth.Lexa groaned into her kiss, her fingers tangling into Clarke’s hair as she angled deeper into the kiss.“Need you … to take a day off …,” Clarke mumbled against her lips, and then kissed her again with an mmfff.And then Clarke husked out, “Two days.”“I just need to be sure …,” Lexa whispered back.Clarke pressed her thigh in between Lexa’s legs and Lexa groaned.“They’re doing great … So good …,” Clarke murmured, pressing soft kisses under Lexa’s jaw, “And now …,” more soft kisses down the side of her neck, “I need you to take some time off … before I explode.”“Perhaps … they could go on a camping trip … for two days … or … three …,” Lexa offered.Clarke leaned back a little and grinned, “And maybe … I could set up one of the other houses for us? For after that … So there’s a place we can go and … be loud …”Lexa let out a little rumbly growl and then kissed her again. Kissed her for a while … just up to the point where it was still possible for them not to go to bed together after. They let their hands wander quite a bit though.“Ok …,” Lexa panted, “Camping … I will tell them …”When they walked back into the house and Lexa announced, “Tomorrow, your test begins.”All the natblidas perked up.“A camping trip … Three days … where you will attempt to live off the land using only what you can carry, and your knowledge and skills …,” Lexa added.The kids shot each other little excited grins.Clarke wasn’t at all surprised by their reaction.If teaching Lexa’s natblidas had taught her anything, it was that they loved being tested, showing off their knowledge and skills. Loved competing against each other too.And weirdly, Madi loved it now too … which had been a surprise to Clarke given how little Madi had liked being tested in school before the natblidas had arrived ... But it turned out that Madi had a competitive streak … when there were other kids around to compete with.The natblidas immediately arranged themselves in a circle on the floor and got to work planning what they would pack. Where they wanted to set up their camp.“The little ones can stay of course …” Clarke said to Lexa quietly, “They’re too young to-”“My youngens know how to take care of each other …” Lexa huffed, and then she bumped her hip against Clarke’s and whispered, “Our youngens.”Clarke grinned at her.“We will tell them … soon …,” Lexa added quietly.Clarke nodded.There was a lot to tell the kids honestly … and not just about them.Telling them about the situation in the bunker, explaining the City of Light that their people would be going to without actually leaving the bunker, telling them that they would be staying in the valley permanently was all going to be a lot. And telling them about their relationship would be one more change on top of all that … It would be the proof that Lexa would not be Heda again. Not ever. She was starting a new life in the valley. They all were.Aden had been keeping in touch with Lexa and the kids over the radio. Calling in each week at the same time.He had been having long talks with Lexa for weeks now about how things had been going since he’d revealed the situation on the ground to the people in the bunker, that it would not be habitable for them for well over a century and that the bunker would not be able to keep them alive until it was, but that taking the chip would offer them a chance at eternal life … A life without suffering or pain in an altered version of the City of Light for those who decided to take the chip by choice. That they would have a sort of immortality.In some ways, the choice was a no brainer.The majority of those in the bunker had resisted taking the chip on the ground before the radiation. But now, with no hope of being on the ground again, after all they had been through, and after years of living in the cold gray walls of the bunker, the opportunity for peaceful immortality someplace beautiful and without any further struggle was much more appealing.Still, after seeing what ALIE had done to people who took the chip her first time around, the majority in the bunker wanted assurances that they wouldn’t be turned into soulless, creepily smiling husks if they took it. Wanted assurances that they would still be themselves, just with minds that could go somewhere better. Wanted to know that they would keep their memories of their loved ones. Their memories of their happiness on the ground.They’d had a lot of questions about the possibility … that Aden had been discussing with them in big townhall style meetings in the main chamber of the bunker, where he and Becca had been answering their questions as best they could.Aden reported that Becca had been working out how exactly to alter ALIE’s programming to accommodate the requests the people in the bunker had been making as their conditions for taking the chip. But when Becca did have a plan figured out, and the vast majority of the people in the bunker agreed that it would be okay to bring the chips to the bunker, it would then be time for Lexa to take the flame from Aden and go to Becca’s island to reprogram and reboot the City of Light, and make the new chips.But in the meantime, when Aden called, he mostly wanted to hear what the natblidas had been up to in the valley, how they were enjoying their newfound freedom. And the kids had a lot to tell him about.They missed him.That much was clear.And Clarke could see that Lexa missed Aden too.She took the radio to her and Clarke’s bedroom to talk to him privately when it was her turn. Returned to the main room with her eyes a little watery, but concealed it from the natblidas. Didn’t want them to see her worrying over Aden.Clarke could understand it.Lexa obviously had a special bond with Aden.He was the oldest of the natblidas, the one Lexa had probably known the longest, her choice to succeed her.And Clarke could understand how some part of Lexa would always worry about him until he was there with them, safe in the valley.Just as Clarke had always worried about Lexa when she’d been in the one in the bunker serving her time as Heda.She understood that for Lexa, their farm, their home wouldn’t feel entirely complete until Aden was there to enjoy it with them. However long that took …Clarke gave Lexa a long hug that night, knowing Lexa would probably worry a little about the kids while they were camping too. Even though they were the most competent children Clarke had ever seen, but she’d do her best to keep Lexa distracted during their impromptu long weekend together while the kids were away …

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Clarke and Lexa saw the natblidas off the next morning, waved at them from the porch as they headed out into the woods with their backpacks on.Well, Clarke waved.Lexa stood on the porch with her hands clasped behind her back in her Heda stance, head held high, shoulders squared, all official, and watched them head out for their camping trip.Madi gave Clarke a smirk before she turned to join the rest of the kids on the trail.She’d caught on fast to how Clarke and Lexa were playing it cool in front of the natblidas on their first full day in the valley.Had teased Clarke about it on the second day, asked why she wasn’t hanging off of Lexa and staring at her all the time like she usually did.And Clarke had smirked back, “I’m still staring at her … just … more subtly …”Madi had laughed. And then Clarke had explained to her that the natblidas needed to get settled into life in the valley and get to know her better before they talked to them about their relationship.Madi had said she understood and wouldn’t say anything. Would let Clarke Lexa reveal it to the other natblidas when they were ready.But then, two months into the natblidas’ time in the village, they’d been out checking the snares in the forest together and Madi had asked, “Are you gonna get their permission to ask Lexa to be your houman?”And Clarke had just blinked back at her.She … hadn’t really thought about that.“Lexa’s … already my houman …,” Clarke had answered, “I already asked her.”Madi arched an eyebrow, “Ok … but … they’re her family. You gotta ask.”Clarke looked at her, “I mean … you’re my family. Lexa didn’t ask you.”Madi just grinned as they hiked up the trail, “Of course she did. I mean … she didn’t ask ask … she just … showed me. You know … how Lexa does.”Clarke’s forehead furrowed, “What do you mean she showed you?”Madi shrugged, “You know … when she first got here … she showed me she knows how to hunt and fish … cooked for us all the time. Showed me that she can like … take care of you … and me. And … the way she always makes sure you’ve got a blanket when you might get cold … and makes sure you always have a comfy place to sit … and how she fixed like … everything in the house … Made us the fireplace … Set up the beehive.”Clarke nodded.Lexa had definitely done all those things. And it wasn’t like Clarke hadn’t noticed … Lexa doing all that stuff had been a huge turn on for Clarke … and she’d rewarded Lexa for all her efforts … like … a lot …“And now she’s figured out the corn … and got the farm running …,” Madi glanced at her.Clarke sighed, “Yeah … I mean … I did give her the house …”Madi rolled her eyes, “Okay … but it’s not like you built a house for her or anything … And I mean … Lexa’s worth building a house for … don’t you think?”Clarke nodded. That was true. Lexa was worth building multiple houses for …She looked at Madi, “I don’t think any house I could build would be safe for anyone to live in.”Madi laughed, “Okay. That’s true. But you gotta do something … to like … prove yourself. You’re Louwoda Kliron Kru now. You gotta do us proud.”Clarke grinned back at her. She loved the fact that Madi had now formally claimed her as part of her clan.And ever since she’d had that conversation with Madi, the thought of how she could prove herself to the natblidas, how she could show them that she was a worthy houman for Lexa had been rolling around in her head.Of course they were gonna be together. They’d been through so much to be together. Loved each other like crazy. And were about to be some of the last few people on the face of the earth together … but Clarke didn’t wanna rely on that fact.She wanted to earn Lexa. To prove herself to her, and to the natblidas that she was a good choice for Lexa … Wanted to do Louwoda Kliron Kru proud.Madi didn’t remember much about Louwoda Kliron Kru’s courting rituals when Clarke had asked her about it. Madi did remember going to a bonding ceremony once though … remembered that there had been a lot of candles. That everyone in the village had been there. That the couple had had their hands wrapped together in some sort of fabric by the head of the clan, in front of everyone.Clarke wasn’t sure how they did bonding ceremonies in Trikru, and she wasn’t sure if Lexa would want a Trikru ceremony, or some other kind of ceremony, or maybe no ceremony at all.But it might be nice to do something like that … to make it official.Honestly, when she’d knelt before Lexa as Wanheda years ago, in front of all of the clan ambassadors, that had felt a lot like a wedding … Clarke couldn’t really imagine any bonding ceremony feeling more official than that. But the purpose of that ceremony had been political … even though … the way Clarke had felt when she’d been kneeling in front of Lexa … and … looking up at her … definitely hadn’t felt entirely political … And when Lexa had knelt to her after the ceremony, privately, swore fealty to her, swore to treat Clarke’s needs as her own, that hadn’t felt political at all … had felt both official and wildly intimate …Clarke had seen wedding ceremonies on the Ark. Couples had parties for their friends afterwards. Her parents had worn each other’s rings.But Clarke didn’t feel like Skykru anymore. Hadn’t felt like Skykru in ages. Didn’t really want that kind of ceremony. She was a Grounder now. And Lexa was as Grounder as they came.Whatever kind of ceremony they had, however she was gonna prove herself, she wanted to do it in the Grounder way.And as much as she wanted to come up with some awesome way to prove herself … she had decided that wanted to do it in a way that Lexa and the natblidas would like … Wanted them to have a say in the matter.And now, over 3 months into the natblidas’ time in the valley, and getting to have Lexa all to herself at the house for a few days, Clarke wanted to put the idea out there.After she’d pulled Lexa into her bedroom and had her way with her.Which Clarke immediately did the second the natblidas had disappeared into the woods to go on their camping trip.And as they laid in bed together, side by side and still panting, Clarke rolled over onto her side, looked into Lexa’s green eyes and said seriously, “So … listen …”And Lexa grinned back at her, her cheeks still flushed, her green eyes all sparkly and filled with affection … And Clarke suddenly felt … a little shy about it … started focusing on tracing her finger across Lexa’s chest so as not to be any more thrown off by the thought of just how many houses Lexa deserved to have built for her …“I … kinda wanna … do something for you …,” Clarke glanced up at her and saw Lexa’s grin arch a little higher.“You just did …,” Lexa smiled out, “… several times.”Clarke smirked back at her, “Yeah … but I wanna do something for you … to prove myself … To show the natblidas that I’ll be a good houman for you.”Lexa’s face got very serious, “Don’t say that to them … Please.”Clarke’s forehead furrowed, “Why not? They’re your family. I wanna show them I’m a good match for you.”Lexa chewed her lip a little and said quietly, “I … appreciate that. It’s very sweet of you. But … the natblidas … have … certain ideas about tests … They’ve been put through many very difficult trials themselves … Have been held to very high standards …”Clarke arched an eyebrow, “You think I’ll fail?” Her pride more than a little wounded.Lexa looked at her for a moment, then said, “You have more than proven yourself … Countless times …”Clarke sighed a little, “We’ve been through a lot. That’s true. But that stuff wasn’t about us. This would be me doing it for you … Just for you.”“There are 8 of them …,” Lexa looked back at her, “Eight. If you ask them … each one of them might have their own test for you …”Clarke nodded.That was … a lot of tests. But fuck it. She’d do whatever it took for Lexa, to get their approval.She looked back at Lexa, “So … I’ll do their tests. And Aden’s when he gets here.”Lexa smiled at the thought of having Aden in the valley with them.“And then we’ll have a bonding ceremony … with all the kids …,” Clarke added.Lexa tried to hide her grin at the idea, but it was too late … Clarke had already seen it.“Their tests … you could get hurt Clarke …,” Lexa looked back at her, “Many of their tests have been physical …”“I’ll be fine,” Clarke smiled.Lexa just looked at her, chewing her lip a little again.“Stop …,” Clarke swatted at Lexa’s side, “It’ll be fine …”Lexa just looked at her, and then … kinda half shrugged.Clarke snuggled in close beside her, put her head on Lexa’s chest, “So … we’ll have the ceremony when Aden gets here … after I’ve passed my tests … ‘cause I’m gonna pass them.”“If you insist on tests … then I should also be tested …,” Lexa said, and kissed the top of Clarke’s head.“You’ve already got Madi’s approval,” Clarke answered, “After all the stuff you’ve done for us here … Pretty sure you had it your first week …”Lexa grinned to herself, “Maybe … but that was what needed to be done for you two. So you would be ok here …”Clarke pressed a soft kiss against Lexa’s chest, “You’ve definitely gone above and beyond … I mean … just the garden alone … We’ve got so many crops going now … sweet potatoes, garlic, squash, regular potatoes, beans, cabbage, turnips … that weird looking one you’re trying out now …”“Madi thinks it is called amaranth …,” Lexa answered, running her fingers through Clarke’s hair, “… though I cannot be sure … We have Louwoda Kliron Kru to thank for that one … the sacks of seeds they left in the barn … When I have the flame again I will ask what it’s for ...”Clarke nodded a little against her chest.She wasn’t looking forward to Lexa having the flame again … even if it was just for the short time that Lexa would be working on reprogramming the City of Light and making the new chips for the people in the bunker at Becca’s house.She didn’t let herself get too distracted by that thought though …“… but the garden is just for survival …,” Lexa added, “If you do trials for me, then I should do trials for you.”Clarke grinned up at her, “Pretty sure you could just trade Madi a plate of sweet potatoes for me.”Lexa chuckled, “Yes … Madi wildly overestimates the value of sweet potatoes … But obviously that’s not a fair trade … The natblidas will test you with difficult trials if you ask them …”Clarke grinned at her, “Yeah well … Kliron Kru is a lot more mellow than your kru … They should probably start adapting to our culture.”“Oh really?” Lexa smiled, “And what is Kliron Kru’s culture?”Clarke snuggled up beside her again, “Well … for a start … weekends. Not having school and training every day. We used to have school for just 4 or 5 days a week when it was just Madi and me, and then 2 or 3 days off … for just … rest … and fun.”Lexa hummed.“I know you wanna give the kids what they’re used to … structure … but 5 days a week is plenty of structure …,” Clarke added, “And maybe you could just train with them once a day for those 5 days? Or every other day? They don’t need that much training to be warriors anymore …”Lexa sighed, “Yes … I know they probably won’t need it … But … just in case they ever do … And … they like it … proving themselves … getting better … the time together … It helps them bond … and stay fit.”“I mean … I’m not complaining …,” Clarke smirked and squeezed Lexa’s muscly thigh.Lexa chuckled.Clarke looked up at her, “But you know … the truth is … we could all get by with just doing our daily chores to keep everything running and we’d be totally fine … With all the people to do the gardening, tending to the chickens, do the trapping and laundry and firewood and cooking and corn and stuff … it really doesn’t take much work at all from each of us to keep things going … 3 or 4 days a week of school on top of that … training a little here and there would be totally okay.”Lexa hummed again, “Let’s try weekends.”Clarke grinned, started tracing her finger across Lexa’s chest again, “And I think we should tell them … about us … They’ve been doing so well here … gotten to know me better … and …,” Clarke sighed, “I fucking miss you … And I don’t want the bonding ceremony to come out of nowhere when Aden gets here. I want them to have time to get used to the idea.”Lexa squeezed Clarke close, “Yes. They … are probably ready.”Clarke pressed a soft kiss against Lexa’s chest and put a leg across her middle, “And I want you to sleep here now.”Lexa smiled, “Let’s see how they react … after we tell them … I would also like to call Aden. To tell him about our plan to be bonded. He knows about us already of course … He has the flame … knows how I feel about you … but … I would like to tell him ….”Clarke blushed, “Yeah … I guess he’ll have seen some stuff …”Lexa chuckled, “He will respect our privacy … But … he would have felt a little of what I feel for you when we saw him in the bunker.”Clarke sat up a little and grinned at her, “Well then … hopefully he’ll approve.” —- The next day, they called Aden over the radio, together.Lexa told him of their intention to be bonded.“Of course … I am not surprised in the least …,” Aden chuckled over the speaker.Clarke squeezed Lexa’s hand and pressed the button on the mic, “I’d like to ask for your approval. The other natblidas too. We’re gonna tell them we’re together when they get back from their camping trip. And I’m happy to do any tests you have for me … to be Lexa’s houman.”“You already have my approval Clarke …,” Aden said gently, “You will have no trials from me. You have both been through enough. Far more than enough. You have my blessing.”Lexa grinned and pressed down the button fort the mic, “When you come to the valley, we’ll have our bonding ceremony then.”“I look forward to it …,” Aden answered, “I have been making progress here. Bekka has had a breakthrough … Believes she has figured out a way to accommodate our people’s preferences for how they would like to live in the City of Light. Though … it will not be the City of Light … It will be New Polis … They wish to have Polis and their own territories restored to them … as they were before praimfaya …”Lexa glanced at Clarke, “Can we do that?”“Bekka believes so … yes …,” Aden answered, “And she believes that she can make the necessary adjustments to the chips … so they allow our people to keep their … individuality and good memories so that they will still be mostly themselves … just with less pain. Make the chips more like the flame in that way. There will also be safeguards added to the program to ensure that anyone who decides not to take the chip will be able to live out their days in peaceful coexistence with those who do. We have been having meetings about it in the central chamber to discuss Bekka’s plan and what they can expect. There is still more convincing to do … but a majority now say that they would be open to the possibility of taking the chip. I believe those who are still unsure will agree when they see that the first group who take it are still themselves after … just … happier.”Clarke squeezed Lexa’s hand.“Clarke … your mother would like to know if you will be taking the chip as well …,” Aden added, “It is something to think about … Taking it … perhaps not now … but … before you die … So that your mind will live on in New Polis with our people.”Clarke pursed her lips and looked at Lexa.It was … a weird thing to think about. Did they want immortality after their lives together in the valley were over?“I’d have questions …,” Clarke answered, unsure.“Of course,” Aden replied, “It’s a big decision. Something to think about though. Something for everyone in the valley to think about ... Lexa can discuss it with you directly when she takes the flame to the island to make the chips with Bekka in her mind. But … I would recommend making a set of chips for everyone in the valley … not just for those in the bunker … in case you decide that you want to go to New Polis when your time comes. I will need a special chip made for myself as well. Bekka knows the parameters for my chip.”“What sort of parameters?” Lexa asked.“Well …,” Aden answered, “The City ofLight … New Polis is a simulated reality ... intended to mirror our own … To be … familiar and comforting for our minds … But … I will have certain … controls over things as Heda … And I would like to be able to fly … that would be … excellent.”Lexa chuckled and pushed down the button on the mic, “Yes. That would be excellent.”“Are those the kinds of things everyone else is asking for?” Clarke asked.“No,” Aden answered, “You would be surprised how mundane their requests have been. Their homes and lands restored. Good food. Lives of little struggle or pain. They want to be able to experience love. Love without feeling heartbreak so deeply. Many wish to have some sort of work they can do. Some want to be excellent craftsmen. Musicians. Trikru wants to live in their forest. In their old way. Octavia and Lincoln wish to live in a cabin together, near Trikru. To have horses.”“And my mom?” Clarke asked.“She wishes to have you there to visit her …,” Aden answered, “And wants to just … live with Marcus. By a lake. Free of responsibilities.”Clarke nodded. She’d expected that her mom would want to be with Marcus. But it was hard to imagine Abby not working. Her mom had always been so busy … Clarke’s entire life … Busy working as a doctor in medical on the Ark … and then busy as head of medical … then busy as a council member on top of that … and then busy as chancellor of Skykru. This would basically be a retirement for Abby … And Clarke wondered who her mom would become in a world like that … in a world where she didn’t have to work so hard all the time and worry and endure sleepless nights …Clarke wasn’t sure who she would be without at least some struggles in her life either …She never seemed to be able to resist getting sucked into her people’s struggles before praimfaya …And even in the valley … there was something nice about having a little struggle in life … Something extremely pleasing about tackling the minor struggles like making sure the kids all had what they needed. That Lexa had everything she needed. The challenge of figuring out the best and most interesting ways to teach the kids their subjects in school …Clarke suspected that she was just the kind of person who was built for struggles and challenges.But when her time was over … an eternity with Lexa did sound appealing … as did an eternity with all the kids once they grew up and joined them in the City of Light when their time on Earth was over.“Is my mom still in lockup?” Clarke asked.“For now … until she has taken the chip and is at peace …,” Aden answered, “In the meantime … I … am still wary that she might make some sort of attempt to take my bone marrow so she and Marcus can live on the ground with you … The … probability of such an attempt is low … but …”“No …,” Clarke answered, “Don’t take any chances … She’s … extremely clever … and … creative …”“Yes,” Aden answered, “She is your mother … so … I will not underestimate her.”Clarke and Lexa both nodded at that.“I … think it’s time to tell the natblidas …,” Aden added, “If all is well … and they are happy there … then the news of the bunker‘s … situation … the radiation … and the plan with the chips going forward should be ok for them to hear … But you must tell them that they will not be needed to serve our people in New Polis. That I will be the last commander … And that if they decide to take the chip at the end … when their fight is over … to join us there … they will be equals with those in the bunker … not even natblidas.”Clarke looked at Lexa, “Do you think they’re ready to hear that?”Lexa nodded, “They will have questions … of course … but they do seem quite happy here …”“Okay …,” Clarke said into the mic, “We’ll lay it all out for them when they get back. What’s happening in the bunker … and … us.”“Clarke is thinking of asking for their approval too …,” Lexa said into the mic, “Offering to do any trials the natblidas’ ask of her …”The radio went silent.Ten seconds of static.And then Aden said seriously, “They will have very high standards Clarke.”Clarke smirked, “Good. Lexa deserves a houman that meets high standards.““They … will respect it though … if you can pass their tests …,” Aden added.Clarke smiled, “That’s what I’m hoping for.”“I have faith in you Clarke …,” Aden’s grinning voice said, “Lexa’s faith and my own.” —- When the natblidas returned from their camping trip, they were dirty, but happy.After they’d gotten cleaned up, they had stories to tell during dinner around the campfire about their adventures. About how well they’d done living off the land with just their wits. About the hammock Penn had brought to sleep in, that he had apparently made in his free time.They all wanted to make hammocks for themselves now too, hammocks that they could set up in the village or take out with them when they went camping next time.“I think we could have camped out a week and been fine …,” Xander grinned and took a bite of his corn biscuit.“More than a week …,” Madi nodded, and then shot Clarke a little grin, “… if necessary …”Clarke winked at her as she chewed her bite of sweet potato.Lexa cleared her throat a little, “We have had a call from Aden … and he has news …”All eyes turned to Lexa.“He has tested the ground and … it will not be safe for the rest of our people for … a very long time … over a hundred years. The ground is only safe for us …”The natblidas cast little glances at each other.“The bunker will be okay for the next 7 or 8 years … but …”Everyone’s attention shot back to Lexa.“The bunker will not keep working for as long as it will take for the ground to become safe for them …,” Lexa continued, “We have a solution though. There is a chip … that Bekka Praimheda is having us make … The chip is … a little like the flame … only this chip will allow the people in the bunker to live out the rest of their days there in peace. Happy. When they meditate, they will be in a place where there is no suffering … where there is good food and safety and beauty …”“Like here?” Xander asked.“Yes,” Lexa smiled back at him, “Onlyfor them, it will be a kind of … second life in that place … with everyone else in the bunker who takes the chip … It is like … a dream life … Real in their minds. And when the bunker cannot keep their bodies alive any longer, their minds will still live on in that place. Forever.”The natblidas cast more little glances at each other.“So … their bodies will be in the bunker … but their minds will be … somewhere else?” Penn asked.Lexa nodded, “Yes. Their minds will be in the City of Light … when they meditate … and when their lives are over. I have been there myself … before praimfaya …”Clarke glanced at Lexa, and Lexa didn’t elaborate.Didn’t mention that the City of Light was ALIE’s creation. Didn’t mention that the City of Light had been the place that Lexa had fought so hard against when ALIE had attempted to force everyone to go to there back before praimfaya.And it was just as well that the natblidas didn’t connect those past events to what was gonna happen now. If they knew anything about ALIE from their lives in Polis before praimfaya, connecting that history to what was going to happen now would only worry them. And Becca had assured Aden and Lexa that the changes to ALIE’s program would ensure that it wouldn’t be like the last time … that those who took the chip would be more themselves as they lived out their lives in the bunker, that they would be entirely peaceful and not threaten anyone else, and that they would be more themselves in the City of Light as well, when they existed in the simulation“So …,” Amelia glanced at Madi, “That means … we have to go to the City of Light too … with our people …”Clarke looked at Madi, who was looking at the ground, her fingers turning the friendship bracelet around her wrist that Amelia had made for her. Amelia had one on her wrist from Madi too. They’d been buddies since the natblidas’ first day in the valley and had only gotten closer since then. Were always hanging out … even did their chores together.Lexa shook her head, “No. There will be no further handing down of the flame. Aden has said that he will be the last commander. When our people go to the City of Light, they will have Aden to guide them … forever … And all their needs will be met in that place. They will not need us to look after them anymore.”Reva sat back on her log, “So … what will we do?”“Well … we have made a home here …,” Lexa answered, “The valley … the farm … all of us have made this a place that can support us. If Kliron Heda approves … we could stay here … and just … live our lives … Help the valley thrive so that one day the earth will become green again.”Madi grinned and nudged her knee against Amelia’s, “Kliron Heda approves of this plan.”“What about Aden?” Callie asked.Lexa smiled, “He will join us here later … after our people have taken the chip. When he can. It … will take time … And he will still be their Heda in the City of Light. Even when he is here.”Callie nodded.“You’re not going to be Heda again …,” Reva looked at Lexa.“No …,” Lexa answered, and then she reached over and took Clarke’s hand, laced their fingers together, “I wish to start a new life here … with Clarke … and all of you.”“So … we’re not going back to the bunker …,” Xander looked at her, “We won’t see them again? Gaia? Indra?”“If we were in the bunker … we would be using up resources the people there need …,” Lexa answered, “But we will be able to see them again in City of Light when our lives here are over … or … almost over. At the end of our time here.”They were all quiet for a long moment, the only sound that of the logs on the fire crackling, and the sound of Otan noisily eating. He had not stopped eating throughout this entire conversation. And Clarke kinda wondered if he hadn’t gotten enough to eat on their camping trip, or if this was just Otan’s regular bottomless stomach. She scooted the rest of her sweet potato off her own plate and into his bowl and he grinned up at her.“Are you okay with this?” Lexa looked at the natblidas, “A life here in the valley?”Madi looked at Clarke, “We’re staying here.”Clarke nodded.“Can … I stay?” Amelia looked at Lexa, “If … we’re allowed … I would like to stay here …”Lexa smiled softly at her, “Yes Amelia …,” she sighed a little, “I know this is … a big change for all of us … No natblidas have been given this opportunity for … a very long time … But … our lives can be our own now … We are not required to serve our people anymore.”Reva let out a breath, “If … they really don’t need us … then there’s no place I would rather be than here ... with my family.”Penn nodded, “Me too. I will go to the City of Light at the end … like Lexa. For now … I just … want to be here … and … build things.”Clarke smiled at him. Penn was always building stuff. Tinkering. Clarke suspected that if Penn had been born on the Ark, he would have been an engineer.“Me too … like Lexa and Penn …,” Xander nodded.“Me too …,” Callie grinned, “We stay here …”“Tris …,” Penn said gently, turning to his toddler sister who was eating from her bowl beside him on the log, “You like it here?“Tris grinned at him and nodded.“And you Otan?” Reva said to him across the fire as Otan shoved a peace of sweet potato into his mouth.“Stay with Lexa …,” he said through his mouthful.“So we are decided then …,” Lexa smiled at them, “And … if you have any questions … or concerns about this … you can come to me anytime and we will discuss it …”“Are you ready to tell us about that …,” Reva grinned at Lexa and nodded at her fingers interlaced with Clarke’s.“Yes …,” Lexa grinned back at her, “I am with Clarke.”Everyone nodded and went back to eating.Clarke and Lexa looked at each other.“And …,” Clarke started, “I’d … like Lexa to be my houman …”“Yeah …,” Penn grinned at her, “We figured.”Clarke and Lexa looked at each other again.“Okay …,” Clarke started hesitantly, “And … I’d like your approval … of the match. And … I’ll do any trials you want … for her.”Reva smiled, “You have already passed the first two …”Clarke blinked back at her.“Otan … tell Clarke the first trial she passed …,” Reva said.He grinned up at Clarke, “Compassion.”“And what was the second Tris?” Reva asked.Tris turned around into her seat to look at Clarke, “Wisdom.”“You’re a good teacha …,” Xander smiled at Clarke.“Really good …,” Amelia agreed, “One of the best we’ve had. You know a lot. Wisdom.”“And you always make sure Tris and Otan have what they need …,” Callie smiled at her, “That we all do. You look out for us. Compassion.”Madi shot Clarke a little grin. Proud of Clarke for passing their tests. For doing Louwoda Kliron Kru proud.“You … have been testing Clarke on the three pillars … for being a commander,” Lexa looked at Reva.Penn nodded, “You’re a commander. Your houman should have all the same qualities. To be an equal match.“Just one left …,” Reva grinned at Lexa.“Is it … strength?” Clarke asked.All the kids all looked at her.“I … heard Lexa testing you on the 3 pillars … when I drove you all here in the rover …,” Clarke answered their silent question.“She’s a good listener …,” Xander grinned, “Also one of Lexa’s qualities.”“Clarke must not be harmed …,” Lexa said seriously, looking at Reva, “No test of strength where she can get hurt.”Reva grinned back at her, “It will be up to Clarke whether she gets hurt. We have already planned her third trial. It will test her mental and physical strength.”Clarke sat up straighter, “I’ll do it.”“The third trial will be the hardest …,” Amelia looked at Clarke, “You have already passed two of the three. You could stop now and still pass.”Lexa squeezed Clarke’s hand but Clarke shook her head, “No. I wanna pass them all.”Xander grinned at her, “That’s good. You just passed another test … A small one.”“It can happen at any time …,” Penn looked across the fire at Clarke, “You will need to be ready.”“Sure …,” Clarke smirked back at him, “Bring it on. Anything for Lexa.”The kids exchanged wordless glances.“Humility is … a good quality for a commander to possess … but it is not one of the 3 pillars …,” Lexa said quickly.Clarke winced a little, pretty sure she’d just failed a test.“We … accept that you are together …,” Reva looked at Clarke, “That is no problem. You make Lexa happy. We can all see that. But … if you want to be her houman … we would like to know for sure that you can take care of her … no matter what happens …”Clarke looked back at her, “I will.”“Then we shall see it …,” Penn nodded.“Aden just gave his approval …,” Lexa grumbled, “He did not require any tests.”“Well … we are not Aden,” Reva winked at Lexa.“And … if I pass …,” Clarke said gently, careful to humbly acknowledge the possibility that she might not, “… when Aden gets here … would each of you be part of our bonding ceremony?”Reva grinned at her, “If we are still invited … after the trials …”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Clarke was feeling good about how well the natblidas had taken the news about the City of Light and the people in the bunker, and the news about her and Lexa.Everything was on track.She had her gigantic new family in the valley, happy to live there. Madi was happy having all the natblidas there to play with and learn from and take classes with and go on adventures with. And now that their relationship was out in the open, Lexa was back in her bed.She could hold her hand and grin at Lexa and lean her head on her shoulder in public as much as she pleased now.And god how she’d missed just being able to touch Lexa all the time.All she had to do now was pass the strength trial whenever the natblidas decided to give her the test and she’d have Lexa as her houman too.She’d already started dreaming up what the ceremony could be like … Madi presiding over it as the Kliron Heda, wrapping her hand with Lexa’s in some nice fabric to symbolize their bonding. Maybe Aden could preside over it too … as the last commander. Lots of candles. Lots of good food. Then they could have a big family celebration after. A nice meal.Lexa and the natblidas had even agreed to the concept of weekends. The trees around the village now had the kids’ hammocks stretched out between them. Everyone had their own little spot where they could sway in the shade and write in their notebooks and dream up new little projects and adventures for themselves.Clarke was lying in the hammock Penn had taught her how to make, daydreaming about the bonding ceremony when she heard someone urgently whisper, “Psst … Clarke …”Clarke slowly sat up in her hammock, but all she saw was bushes.“Clarke …,” the bush whispered again.Clarke’s forehead furrowed, “Madi?”“Shhhhh … Lay back down … don’t talk …,” the bush whispered.Clarke laid back down in her hammock.“Listen …,” the bush whispered, “I’m gonna leave two things for you here in the bushes … and you’ve gotta figure out how to make one of them look like the other one … okay? … Make it look exactly the same. And … keep doing it over and over again … till it’s easy. And … don’t let anyone see you doing it.”Clarke sat up in the hammock and looked at the bush, “Madi … What are you talking about?”“Shhhhh! Shut up!” The bush whispered urgently, “Just do it. Over and over again. Until it’s perfect. Don’t let anyone see you do it.”Clarke laid back down in the hammock and said quietly, “Okay. Make the one look like the other till it’s easy. Don’t let anyone see. Got it.”“And … come help me hang the laundry to dry … in … an hour …,” the bush whispered.“Isn’t laundry Amelia’s job this week?” Clarke asked.“Not today …,” the bush whispered, “Just … come help me do it … ‘cause … you love me …”Clarke grinned, “I do love you.”“I love you too …,” the bush whispered back, “See you in an hour …”Clarke heard the bushes rustle, and then got up, stepped over to them and found two lengths of brown rope on the ground. One had a thick knot looping the rope in a circle. The other had no knot at all.She laid back in her hammock, her fingers figuring out the knot, and started to practice tying the same knot on the other length of rope … over and over again. —— An hour later, Clarke shoved the two pieces of knotted rope into her pockets and wandered over to where Madi was finishing up washing laundry in one of their big metal tubs.She sat down beside her and helped her wring out the clothes.“Did I ever tell you about all the stuff I ate before you got here?” Madi asked.“Fish right?” Clarke asked.“Sometimes …,” Madi answered, her eyes on the pair of pants she was wringing out, “But the easiest thing to catch is bugs …”Clarke wrinkled her nose, “I’m sorry you had to do that …”Madi shook her head, “Bugs can taste pretty good … you can heat them over the fire … they’re … crunchy … but good. You can live off them. Just … don’t eat the shiny ones …”Clarke’s forehead furrowed, “I definitely won’t …”Madi glanced at her, “Even the gooey ones … the ones that live in wet dirt under rocks by the lake … you can eat them too …”Clarke wanted to say ‘Gross’ but she didn’t. Didn’t want to insult or embarrass Madi for doing what she’d had to do to survive. And Madi almost never talked about her time alone in the valley … after she’d lost her people to the radiation … her parents … it was … a sensitive topic … So Clarke just nodded as she squeezed water out of a shirt. Didn’t say anything.They gathered up all the damp laundry and carried it to the rows and rows of drying lines behind one of the village houses.But before they started hanging up the laundry on the lines, Madi said, “Hang up the laundry like I do … watch my feet.”And Clarke watched Madi’s feet as she hung up shirts and pants on the line. There was … nothing remarkable about it … Looked like how anyone would walk when they were hanging laundry out to dry …“Now you try it,” Madi looked at her.“Okay …,” Clarke looked back at her, and then picked up a few shirts and started hanging each one over the line.“No …,” Madi shook her head, “Step sideways … don’t let your feet cross in front of each other … like this …”Madi grabbed a few pairs of socks out of the laundry pile and hung them up on the line side by side, walking sideways as she did it, never letting her feet cross in front of each other.“See …,” Madi turned to her, “If my feet never cross in front of each other, it won’t be so easy for me to lose my balance and fall over …”Clarke’s forehead furrowed, “Fall over? When you’re hanging up laundry?”“Or just … whenever …,” Madi looked at her, “If I didn’t want to fall over … I’d walk sideways like that … and … lower to the ground … kinda … hunched forward …”Clarke raised an eyebrow, “Okay …”“And if I wanted to push something over …,” Madi looked up at her, “I’d push with my back leg … that’s where all my power would come from … from my back leg … if I was … pushing … like … a really big rock or something … like this …”Madi mimicked pushing a boulder, her hands out, kinda crouched forward. She stomped her back foot on the ground, “See? I’d be pushing from back here …”Clarke blinked at her, “Okay …”
What was Madi doing?
“And if you were a big rock …,” Madi looked up at her, “That’s how I’d push you over … like this …”Madi hunched forward again, then wrapped her arms around Clarke’s waist, in a kind of … low hug, her shoulder just underneath Clarke’s ribs, and kinda … leaned her shoulder into Clarke’s stomach a few times.“See?” Madi said quietly, leaning her shoulder gently into Clarke’s stomach again, “I’m pushing with my back leg … ‘cause that’s where my power is … and my feet are apart … I’m … not crossing my feet … so I don’t fall.”Clarke put her hands on Madi’s shoulders and straightened her up to her full height, looked her in the eye, “You feeling okay?”She put her hand on Madi’s forehead to see if she had a fever.Madi wrapped her arms around Clarke in a hug and squeezed and Clarke hugged her back.“I’m good …,” Madi mumbled against Clarke’s shoulder, “Just … remember what I said.” —- Clarke awoke very early the next morning by the sound of a desperate little “Mffff!” beside her.She sleepily half-opened an eye, and in the weak pre-dawn light, saw Lexa looking at her with wide eyes, a hand pressed over her mouth, and then Clarke felt loops of rope yank tight around her wrists and ankles.“Hey! What the …,” Clarke grumbled, but then a gag was shoved in her mouth and a sack was pulled over her head.And suddenly, Clarke was wide awake.She started wriggling furiously against the wrist restraints, against the hands rolling her off the bed. A spike of panic flooding through her.
Oh fuck.
Someone had found the valley.And … she wasn’t in bed anymore … She was … on a stretcher maybe? Like the one she’d made just in case anyone got injured away from the village and had to be carried back …Only she was being carried now …Was wriggling against the restraints under a thin blanket that had been tossed over her.She could feel herself being … moved … carried out of the house on the stretcher as she shouted around the gag in her mouth … hoping the kids would hear her and run …She could feel the cool morning air on her bare toes as she wriggled, her wrists and ankles straining against the ropes to get free.She felt a small hand give her ankle a gentle squeeze …And … then she remembered … the strength trial … this was it … the kids were testing her …She stopped yelling into the gag and let out a relieved breath.
Thank god.
This wasn’t an invasion.But it was a strength test …She wriggled against the restraints again with all her strength to try and get out of them … but the more the struggled, the tighter the ropes got around her wrists and ankles.And even though she knew now that this was just a test, that this was just the kids, her heart was still hammering away in her chest.This was … kinda like that time Anya had kidnapped her to force her help that sick kid in Trikru. Or the time Anya had kidnapped her after they’d escaped Mount Weather together. Or the time Roan had kidnapped her to take her to Polis.The memories of those kidnappings all came flooding back.But … this kidnapping was … a lot more gentle than those other times  … She was being carried on a stretcher instead of dragged. Was being carried far … like really far … She could feel the angle of the stretcher shifting as she was carried up and down inclines in the terrain.The gears in mind started turning. She couldn’t see anything through the sack on her head, but she tried to imagine which direction they might be taking her in.After what seemed like ages, she felt the stretcher being gently set down … felt herself being rolled off it onto the ground. Heard footsteps crunching in the dirt, walking away.She squirmed around in the dirt until the sack slipped off her head … She was … in a little clearing … in a part of the forest she didn’t immediately recognize … quite a ways away from the village.Clarke squirmed around in the dirt some more until she was sitting up, her bound ankles stretched out before her, her wrists straining against the bindings behind her back.She shifted around on the ground to look around … but no one was there … She was alone in the woods … and there was … a knife sticking out of the ground a little ways away from her … the thin blanket they’d covered her in was still there too … and … a backpack … with her jacket and clothes and hiking boots stacked neatly beside it …Ok … this was … like … some kind of survival test … Like the survival training she did with Madi …She scooted over to the knife and got to work awkwardly cutting off her wrist restraints behind her back.When her hands snapped free of the rope, she pulled the gag out of her mouth, reached down to untie her ankles and blew out a breath to push her hair away from her eyes. When she was free, she pulled on the clothes over her sleep shirt and sleep shorts. Pulled on her jacket and hiking boots too.And then, she opened up the backpack, but … there was almost nothing in it … Just a hearth-board to help with starting fires, two metal bowls … one of which had ‘Lexa’ written across the side of it … and … there was a note …A note that said:
If you want to be Lexa’s houman, pass our trials. Prove you can keep her alive for a week on your own. Fill her bowl by the end of each day. Set up your camp here:
And then the note listed out coordinates.Coordinates from the map of the valley Clarke had made that to split the valley into quadrants.Clarke grinned at the note.It was a fair test. If she didn’t have the mental and physical strength to provide for Lexa for a week, then she wasn’t ready to have Lexa as her houman.She closed her eyes and imagined the map of the valley in her mind.She’d shown the kids the map and explained the coordinate system to them when they’d first come to the valley … so they could leave a note or tell someone where they were going before they went off on one of their adventures in the woods. That way, if they ever got hurt while they were out, someone would know where to go looking for them. Or … if they ever had to hide somewhere in the valley, they could leave a message about where they were hiding using the coordinates … a message that no one who hadn’t seen their family’s map would be able to understand. Learning the map and the coordinates for different locations in the valley had been one of the very first lessons she’d taught the natblidas in school and tested them on. It was one of their most important lessons.And apparently, they were testing her knowledge of the map now too.She imagined the quadrants and coordinates of the map in her mind. Imagined where the coordinates on the note would take her approximately.She checked the direction the sun was rising from, put the blanket, the knife, and the bits of rope from her wrists and ankle bindings into the backpack, looked around for landmarks to get her bearings, and then headed off to the location of the coordinates, on the opposite side of the valley.Mindful of her mission to keep Lexa fed, she put the backpack over her chest and opened it up, popped whatever edible plants she spotted into it as she walked to her destination.During her time in the valley, she’d mostly stuck to the village and it’s immediate surroundings, but she’d gone on plenty of camping trips in the woods to do survival training with Madi. Had taught Madi everything she’d learned from her earth skills class on the Ark on those camping trips. And learned everything she could from Madi about how to survive in the valley during those trips too.She could do this.Could set up a campsite.Knew how to start a fire.Knew that water, heat, and shelter should be her highest priorities.But this trip wasn’t just about surviving. It was about proving that she could take care of Lexa.And if Lexa were there with her, she wouldn’t want Lexa to just survive. She’d want her to be comfortable. To be well hydrated. To have the best food available. And that would be a challenge … especially in a part of the valley Clarke had only walked through once to map.The hike over to the other side of the valley took up hours of daylight, and she needed to get ready for nightfall.So when Clarke arrived at where she figured she was roughly supposed to be, she got straight to work.She looked around until she found a thick woody grapevine branch and used the knife to carve off the bark in a spot were it ran parallel to the forest floor. Carved a V into the flesh of the branch and clean water started dripping out onto the ground.She whittled down a little twig and tapped it into the base of the V with the handle of her knife to serve as a spigot, placed Lexa’s bowl under it to catch the water, and then set up a second spigot in a different grapevine branch to fill her own metal bowl. Then she went back to where the coordinates had led her to set up a warm place to sleep.She found a fallen over tree that would block the wind on one side and started collecting armloads of dry leaves off the forest floor, piled them next to the log to be her bed.And when she had finished making a truly massive pile of crunchy leaves to sleep inside, she started looking around for firewood, picking up dried branches and sticks and thick rotted logs off the forest floor, until she had a big stack of firewood near her bed ... And honestly, there were so many dry sticks and branches and rotted out logs on this side of the valley, she realized that they should probably be making camping trips out there regularly to burn off all the forest-fire fuel.By the time she had her leaf pile and big stack of firewood, the sun was already getting lower in the sky, the light was already softening, already turning golden.She started prepping for her campfire.Pulled out the hearth-board that the kids had very kindly included in her backpack and carved a little notch near the edge of the broad flat side with her knife. Stripped the bark and twigs off a long, finger-width stick from her firewood pile with her knife. Rounded the base of the stick so it could to serve as a spindle. Then she sheared the bark off a thicker stick to serve as a bow, pulled one of her shoelaces out of her hiking boot to be the string for the bow and found a flat stone to press down on the top of the spindle, so that when she sawed the bow back and forth to spin the spindle stick, the rounded end of the spindle would grind down hard into the hearth-board from the pressure of the stone and hopefully create a little friction ember. She built a little teepee of dried twigs and surrounded them with a circle of stones.Her fire starting materials prepped and ready, she peeled the thick bark off a rotted out fire log with her knife, pulled off the thready strands on the inside of the bark and tugged and worked at the fibers with her fingers until she had a flammable little nest of bark fibers big enough to fill both her hands.She wound the spindle stick through the bow string once and got to work spinning the spindle stick into the hearth-board with the bow … putting downward pressure on the top of the stick with the stone as she spun it, her other hand sawing the bow back and forth, until the hearth-board started to smoke from the friction. And soon enough, she had a glowing ember to carefully put into her little nest of bark fibers, was blowing into the nest until it was smoking and little flames were licking out of the sides of it, and then put the burning little nest into the little teepee of twigs so it could grow into a proper fire she could put the bigger logs on.And just before it got too dark, she collected the two bowls that had been filling up with water under the grapevine branch and brought them back to her camp. Took a few sips from her own bowl, and then pulled the edible plants she’d collected on her hike out of her backpack. Wiped the dirt off them and cut them up, dropped them into Lexa’s metal bowl till it was full. Pushed it next to the campfire to boil. Put whatever edible plants she had left into her own bowl of water and put that next to the campfire too.It wasn’t much.Just two bowls of edible plant ‘soup’ that would probably mostly just taste like hot plant water.But … it was something.The soup had water that Lexa would have been thirsty for if she were there at the campsite, and the boiled leaves and roots would be soft, definitely safe to eat, and would provide some calories.And just looking at Lexa’s bowl, seeing it so full made Clarke quite proud of herself.The first day of camping was always the hardest.Setting everything up from scratch.Making sure you had a warm place to sleep and a fire to keep you warm on your first night so you actually would be able to sleep through the night was an accomplishment all on its own.But she’d done even better than that. Had managed to fill Lexa’s bowl too.And sure … she hadn’t actually made a proper shelter ...Hadn’t had time for that.She’d be spending the night burrowed into the center of a gigantic pile of leaves. But the air didn’t smell like rain. And as long as she put enough logs on the fire before she went to sleep, the flames and the leaves would keep her warm enough.The most important thing was that she had fulfilled her mission of keeping Lexa’s bowl full.Clarke pulled the blanket out of her backpack and huddled around the fire, sipping hot plant water from her bowl as the darkness descended all around her.It had been a very long day.Had kicked off with a kidnapping at dawn, followed by a hike across the valley, followed by setting up a campsite from scratch with very few tools. It wasn’t all that late, but she was tired.Was already missing the comforts of her little house in the village more and more with each passing second. Was missing having Lexa by her side, having the voices of her bustling brood of natblidas around.After a little while, she heard some leaves crunching off in the distance and instinctively grabbed for her knife.And then … Madi appeared in the warm circle of firelight.Clarke grinned at her, “Hey.”“Hey … Nice fire …,” Madi grinned back and took a seat beside the fire, “Do you … have something for me?”Clarke chuckled, “I have something for Lexa. But I don’t think she’d mind …”She scooted Lexa’s bowl of boiled plants toward Madi, “Careful. It’s hot.”Madi pulled down her sleeves to protect her hands and carefully picked up the metal bowl. Took a sip and hummed. Gave her a little smile, “How’d you have time?”“I picked everything I saw that we could eat on the way here,” Clarke answered.Madi nodded back at her, “Smart. It’s not so easy to find food over here. You did us proud.”Clarke grinned at the compliment.“You can still be with her you know … even if you can’t keep her bowl full every day …,” Madi looked at her, “They aren’t gonna stand in your way or anything … This is just … to get them onboard with you being her houman. That’s … a really big deal to them …”Clarke smiled back at her, “It’s a big deal to me too. And … it’s what I want. Lexa’s my person. Like you’re my person. I wanna make it official.”Madi nodded and looked into the fire, sipped from the bowl, and then said quietly, “There’s something about her … When she first came here … when we were hanging out … it felt like … I don’t know … like … I’d been missing her … before I’d even met her … It felt like … finally … you’re here.”Clarke grinned, “We’d waited a long time for her … And you’d heard a lot of stories about her …”Madi nodded a little and looked back at her, “I … don’t think it’s just that … It … wasn’t the person in those stories I’d been missing … I missed her … It was like … I didn’t know that she was the one I’d been missing till she got here. How can you miss someone you’ve never met before?“Clarke gave her a watery smile, “That’s love. It was like that when I first started spending time with her too. And when I met you ...”Madi nodded, sipped from her bowl again, then said quietly, “I keep thinking … if … my parents hadn’t hidden me from the fleimkepas … I … would’ve known her. Like the other natblidas do …”Clarke gave her a soft look.Madi rarely talked about her parents. It was a sensitive topic. But Madi fit in so well with the other natblidas, with Lexa, it made sense that she would wonder about what her life would’ve been like if she’d been taken to Polis to be with them.Clarke reached over and squeezed her knee, “Your parents were looking out for you. Protecting you. They did the right thing.”Madi looked back at her, “Did they? …‘Cause I’d ‘ve met you too. In Polis. If I’d ‘ve been there. Some of the natblidas remember seeing you there. They said Lexa got hurt in the tower and you were there … that you took care of her. That’s why they trust you now.”Clarke sat back a little.She … hadn’t been sure if the any of the natblidas remembered that or not. Maybe the older ones might remember … years ago, when Titus had shot Lexa. When Lexa had nearly died.Right after it’d had happened, Clarke and Aden had had to rush off to Arkadia to handle the situation with Pike and the blockade … and to smuggle a doctor out to come to the tower to treat Lexa’s gunshot wound. Aden had charged some of the natblidas with guarding Lexa while they’d been away, while Lexa healers were barely keeping her alive in Clarke’s room, because almost no one else could be trusted with the knowledge of how vulnerable Lexa was. Even Lexa’s regular guards couldn’t be trusted to know how seriously injured she was … And Aden had refused to leave Lexa without any guards after what Titus had done. As the next oldest natbidas, Reva and Penn would’ve probably been the ones charged with guarding Lexa. They would’ve been pretty close to Madi’s age at the time ...Lots of little details like that about the event were kind of a blur in Clarke’s memory though … She’d been so traumatized by it, almost having lost Lexa like that. She vaguely remembered Titus telling her that the natblidas were in the room when she’d returned from Arkadia after securing Pike’s surrender and had crawled straight into bed by Lexa’s side. She remembered the weeks she’d spent hovering over Lexa during her recovery. Vaguely remembered that the natblidas had been guarding the door and bringing in trays of food while she’d been keeping Lexa’s mind occupied so she wouldn’t go stir crazy from being cooped up while she’d been recovering.But after Lexa had recovered, everyone who knew about it had just sort of …pretended like it had never happened … Except for that one conversation she’d had with Titus about it after ...Even she and Lexa kinda pretended like it hadn’t happened. Even though …  those weeks when she’d been looking after Lexa had been the start of their relationship … the start of their real relationship …The only reminder that it had happened at all was the scar on Lexa’s skin that Clarke pressed soft kisses over every time she was kissing her way down Lexa’s chest …Maybe it was for the best that they never talked about it though.Because even just hearing Madi vaguely reference that event was so painful. Felt like someone was grinding their heel into a bruise on Clarke’s heart that was just as tender and raw as it had when she’d had her hands pressed over Lexa’s wound, when her hands had been covered in Lexa’s black blood, when she’d been arguing with Lexa that she didn’t want to go back to Arkadia … and had been trying with everything in her not to just break down sobbing right in front of Lexa from the knowledge of just how lethal her injury was … or would have been … if Lexa hadn’t had the flame … and if Lexa’s black blood hadn’t helped keep her alive until Jackson had arrived.Clarke blinked back tears and looked at Madi, “We all found each other either way … I was in space and I found my way to her. You were here and I found you. Lexa was trapped in a bunker and she found her way to us. We all found each other. And we’re together now. That’s all that matters.”Madi nodded and reached over and squeezed her hand, “Thank you for finding me … and staying … after I caught you in that bear trap …”Clarke grinned back at her and squeezed her hand, “This is how it’s supposed to be … all of us here together. Lexa knows it too. She loves you so much … You know that right?”Madi shot her a little grin.They sat by the fire together for a little while longer and then Madi sighed and got up, Lexa’s bowl still in her hands, “Well … I’d better get going.”“You’re welcome to stay …,” Clarke smiled and patted the mountain of leaves that would be her bed.Madi smirked, as if she had a far better sleeping spot to get back to, but said politely, “Thanks. But I’m all set. Gonna take her bowl though. You’ll get it back tomorrow.“Clarke pursed her lips and nodded. A little disappointed that Madi was leaving.Madi hadn’t even finished the soup. Had only sipped at it a few times.But in truth, Clarke was still figuring out how this test worked exactly. Apparently she was being watched. And there was no way that Madi was all alone this far out in the woods. And if the other natblidas were around, she could understand that Madi would want … or maybe needed to get back to them … because of the test … or because Madi very likely had a much nicer dinner and sleeping bag waiting for her with them …Clarke watched her little natblida disappear into the darkness, set some big logs on the fire to keep it burning, grabbed her blanket and then burrowed deep into her pile of leaves. —- Day 2 —- Clarke woke up the next morning surrounded by black.She shifted around a little and the crackling sounds her reminded her of where she was, that she was sleeping in the center of a big pile of dried leaves.She crawled out of the pile, leaves stuck in her hair, to her clothes. Her fire now just a big pile of ash.The leaf pile hadn’t been too bad of a bed.She’d been warm enough inside it to sleep past dawn.She yawned in a deep breath of the cool morning air and then picked off the leaves that were still stuck to her clothes and hair, the ones she could see anyway, and then noticed the two metal bowls by the campfire.Lexa’s bowl was now empty. Clean and dry. Had a note in it that said:
Good soup. Lexa is hungry for fish today.
Oh fuck.Were there even fish on this side of the valley?And even if there was a body of water she could find, she didn’t have Madi’s fishing spears. Maybe if she tied her knife to a long stick with her other shoelace?She was pretty rusty at spear fishing … They’d been using Lexa’s fish trapping baskets for months …But first things first.
Find the fish.
Clarke closed her eyes and imagined the map of the valley in her mind.She hadn’t walked through every patch of ground to make her map. It was entirely possible that she had missed a pond or a natural spring.Where hadn’t she walked when she’d been making her map?She sighed. That could be anywhere, in any direction.She’d wear herself out looking. Might even get lost and lose her campsite.She picked up the two metal bowls and went to tap another woody grapevine branch for water in case she couldn’t find this new mystery water source and would need drinking water … Mulled over the question in her mind.How the fuck did you find a body of water in the wilderness?Water flowed downhill … walking to the lowest point would be a good bet … but …the land all around her looked pretty flat … in every directions …Animal tracks?The animals in this part of the valley would need a water source too … and they couldn’t just tap grapevine branches like she could.She hadn’t actually seen any animals though.Maybe there weren’t many animals out here? Or maybe all the dried leaves on the ground she’d crunched through on her trek through the woods had been scaring them away … And all the dried leaves on the ground didn’t leave much open ground for animals to leave their tracks in the dirt.She closed her eyes.Thinking.Thinking about the lake near the village.What were the clues that there was a lake there if someone hadn’t know it was gonna be there?If she could see a place where the land sloped downward that would be a clue.Water ran down to the lowest point.If there was a natural spring, the sound of running water would be a clue.If she was standing on the high ridge surrounding the valley and could see a gap in the trees or which spots were especially green, that would be a clue too.The forest was especially lush around the lake by the village because of all the water seeping into the ground there …And many of the trees around the lake were different than the other trees on her side of the valley …Different types of trees in a certain area could be another clue.Birds were always at the lake too, drinking and rinsing off their feathers.Clarke looked up to see if she could spot any birds flying overhead, what direction they were flying in, but this forest was covered in a low canopy of leaves a dozen feet over her head from all the young trees. So many leaves from so many young trees that the light around her was tinted green.She needed … a better view … like … an … overhead view to look for a downward slopes in the land, or to see the flight paths of the birds overhead, or to spot especially lush green areas … or different kinds of trees … or a gap in the trees.Maybe … she needed … to climb a tree?Like … a really fucking tall tree?Or one that at least went higher than the forest canopy of the younger trees currently above her.Her bowls set up to collect water from the grapevine branches, she grabbed her backpack and started walking around in the vicinity of her campsite to collect more firewood for the night … Putting smaller sticks in her backpack, carrying larger branches she broke into pieces in her arms, keeping an eye out for a very tall tree with branches she could climb. Keeping an eye out for the right sized branch that was big enough to wrap her fist around and straight enough to be the long handle of a fishing spear.She found a tree with bark she could pull off in strips. Strips that would be much easier to make into a little nest of fibers out of for the friction ember she’d make that night to start her campfire. She pulled off just a few strips, just enough to make the nest for the ember and not damage the tree too much.Took the bark strips and the armload of firewood she found back to camp. Went out to collect a second armload of firewood. And then a third. Found a straight enough and thick enough tree branch she could use for her fishing spear.And then she went for a walk, until she spotted a very tall tree with enough branches that she was pretty sure she could climb it. One tall enough that she would definitely be able to see over the low canopy of all the younger trees.She took in a deep breath and started to climb. Pulling herself up, branch after branch. Pulling herself up higher and higher until she made it up above the canopy of younger trees. And then she kept climbing. Went as high as she could go to get the best, furthest view possible.She hoped to god that the kids weren’t in the forest somewhere watching her do this.They would be in so much trouble if they ever climbed up this high …Clarke wasn’t sure exactly what kind of trouble they would be in though … The natblidas hadn’t done a single thing wrong since they’d come to the valley. Always did whatever was asked of them. Maybe no punishments would ever be necessary for them …Lexa being disappointed in them was probably the worst punishment they could imagine anyway … They lived for her approval.Madi was probably the only one who would do something as crazy and brave as climbing a tree this high …When Lexa had pulled that beehive out of a tree to set up the colony in Louwoda Kliron Kru’s beehive boxes by the village, Clarke could so easily imagine Madi pulling something like that …Something so insanely brave …Even Clarke had been ridiculously impressed with Lexa for doing that.Madi was still talking about how awesome it was that Lexa had done that months later …Madi and Lexa were so alike in that respect … brave … fearless … loved a challenge … an opportunity to prove what they were made of …Clarke wasn’t sure what kind of punishment she’d come up with if Madi pulled something as dangerous as climbing a tree this high, or did something like that beehive stunt Lexa had pulled …Madi seemed to think that the worst punishment possible was having to spend time talking with Clarke about a mistake she’d made after it happened …Once, Madi had gotten mad at Clarke for something trivial and took off into the woods without telling her where she was going … and then Madi had gotten lost in the forest for hours and hours.When Clarke finally found her, Madi had clearly been frightened by the experience. Her eyes were red from crying.Clarke had taken her home and got her warm and fed, and then tried to have a very gentle conversation with Madi about why she’d taken off like that, and then gently explained all the reasons why that wasn’t ok to do.And Madi acted like that conversation was somehow the worst punishment of all … Like it was some kind of torture.Even though Clarke didn’t think of it as a punishment at all … hadn’t meant for it to be one …Madi had said she wished Clarke would just spank her for being bad and be done with it.Clarke had been shocked by that.That definitely wasn’t the kind of parent she wanted to be.But … she might make an exception if Madi ever did something as crazy as climbing this high up a tree.It was a definitely a mistake to be up so high.Every part of Clarke’s brain and body was telling her it was a mistake as she climbed higher and higher.She couldn’t look down without feeling a sharp spike of panic in her chest.So she didn’t look down.She pulled herself up and up, to the highest branch she possibly could to get a good view, hooked her leg over a hopefully sturdy enough branch to sit on, and then took a seat on it, her legs dangling down on either side of it, high above the forest floor, her arms wrapped tightly around the tree trunk to hold on so she wouldn’t accidentally slip.The branch she was sitting on seemed to be holding her weight … but god … she could feel the branch shifting under her when the wind blew by … It was maybe just sturdy enough to hold her …But the view from that branch … when she looked out, her face pressed against the side of the trunk … was … so totally beautiful … the light green canopy of the tree tops stretched out beneath her, lit up by golden morning sunlight.She could see much further from up so high. Could see birds gliding over the green canopy of trees.But she didn’t see any signs of water. Didn’t see any lower spots in the land that water might run downhill into and collect in. Didn’t see any gaps in the trees that might indicate a pond or lake either.After a while though, she did notice that a few birds were flying in the opposite direction … in the direction she couldn’t see with her arms wrapped around the trunk, gripping it, holding on for dear life.Of fucking course she needed to turn around … Needed to let go of the safety of the trunk and turn around to see what was behind her.Clarke closed her eyes and took in a deep, breath, let it out slowly to try and calm the swell of panic she could feel in her chest. And then took in another calming breath. Then another. Then another.And then she very slowly, and very fucking carefully started to turn … shifting her hold on the tree trunk, sliding around it a little … so that she only had one thigh hanging over the tree branch she’d been sitting on, both her arms gripped tightly around the trunk to keep her up in the air.Her arms were gripped so tightly around the trunk that the bark was digging into her arms, was digging into her chest through her shirt.But when she turned her head to take in the new view, she could fucking see it. The gap in the tree tops where the pond was.It would be a reasonable walk away, but not too bad … not when she knew exactly what direction to walk in.She gripped the tree branch with her thigh and pulled herself squarely back onto her seat on the branch, and then super fucking carefully and super fucking slowly started to climb down.Let out a deep breath when her feet landed on the ground. Feeling shaky with adrenaline.Lexa would not have approved of her climbing up so high. Clarke didn’t really approve of herself doing it either.But it had worked.She pulled off a chunk of bark on the tree trunk to indicate the direction she needed to walk to get to the water source.Then she walked back to camp, drank the water that had collected in the bowls under the grapevines and put them back to catch more water. Picked up her knife, her jacket, her backpack, and the straight-ish branch she planned to use as a fishing spear.She made her way back to the tall tree, put her hand on the mark she’d made on the trunk, and then looked up at just how absurdly fucking high she’d climbed … and … grinned …Started to feel really fucking proud of herself.Climbing up so high was … pretty badass … honestly …It had also been stupid ... really stupid … and risky … so risky … Lexa definitely would not have approved of her taking that risk …But … she kinda wished Lexa had been there to see her do it anyway … Had been there to see just how fucking committed she was to being her houman … To getting her a fish dinner.And she was still grinning as she walked in the direction of the water, kicking her feet through the leaves with her walking stick / future fishing spear, leaving herself a clear trail she’d be able to use to find her way back to camp when she was done fishing.She was still grinning when she got to the pond. It was a nice sized pond really … Not as big as the lake by the village. It was maybe one long stone throws across. Maybe four long stone throws wide.Maybe this was a marsh actually. Not a pond. The shallows along the muddy banks were packed with tall marshy stalks that swayed gently in the breeze.It was beautiful in a different way than the lake by the village.And honestly, Clarke was glad to know that there was another water source in the valley.She dropped her backpack on the shore and walked along the edge of the water for a ways. Saw loads of shiny little minnows flitting around by the shore.It was a good sign.Meant that the water was heathy. Was filled with life. It had tall marshy grasses growing out of it, thriving, had so many shiny little minnows flitting though it. She could hear some creatures croaking on the other side of the marsh. Saw a few little disturbance on the smooth surface of the water as she took in this new place, probably fish snapping at bugs.Tris and Otan would have loved seeing all the minnows.She could have looked out at the place for a lot longer, just appreciating its beauty.But she had a task to complete.And even though she had hours and hours of daylight left, she wanted to get it done. Wanted to secure her Day 2 victory for her houman.She used her knife to quickly strip the bark off the straight-ish branch she’d brought that would be the long handle of her fishing spear. Criss-crossed a little hand-hold grip onto it where her fist would go to keep her hand from slipping when it got wet.It barely took any time at all to get the length of the spear ready. But then came the tricky part.She didn’t have a metal arrowhead for the end of it like Madi’s fishing spears in the village had.Did she wanna tie the handle of her knife to the end of it with the shoelace from her hiking boot? With her last shoelace … the one she wasn’t already using for her campfire bow?Or did she want to sharpen the end of the branch into a point? Not so deadly, but easier to aim …She slipped off her shoes and pants to keep them dry and stepped into the cool water with the long handle of her fishing spear. By the time she’d stepped deeper into the water, almost up to her knees, the water had become a cloudy mess around her.She could feel a thick mat of plants, vines, and mossy stuff that felt kinda mucky on under her feet as she stepped through the water … felt something slimy and slithery slide against her calf that made her jump.She couldn’t actually see her feet anymore. Anywhere she stepped instantly turned the water cloudy all around her and became impossible to see through. And the water stayed cloudy, even when she stood still, waiting for minutes and minutes for the silt to settle back down.This … wasn’t going to be an easy place to spearfish. At all. Every step she took disturbed so much mud and plant matter and debris. And there was plant matter everywhere under the surface that the fish could slip through that would make it very hard for her to cleanly hit one of them with her spear.If she tried to spearfish with the knife tied to the end of her stick, there was a decent chance she’d spear her own foot when the water got cloudy. And aiming a knife tied to a stick wasn’t the same as aiming a true fishing spear with a correctly aligned metal tip. She might lose the knife in the muck too and cut herself trying to search for it in all the plant matterShe decided to sharpen the stick.Went back to the shore. Got her knife.But then chewed her lip a little.Thought about her probably not so great aim in the muddy water ...What she needed wasn’t actually a sharp metal point like Madi’s spears … what she needed was more sharp points …She got an idea.Clarke cut off the end of the branch to form a flat plane with her knife. Picked up a flat rock from the shore. Set the sharp blade of her knife against the flat end of the branch and tapped it in with the rock to split the end of the branch down the middle a few inches. Then turned the knife 90 degrees and tapped it in again with the stone to make another split perpendicular to the first, so that it had four ends. Then she shaved down each of the ends into points so the stick had four pointy prongs.More points to jab into a fish given that her aim probably wouldn’t be great in the cloudy water.Fuck.This was gonna be hard.She looked out at the marsh again.Looked out at those tall marshy stalks swaying in the morning breeze. If they could sway in the breeze, then they could bend. Could be woven into a fish trapping basket.Her confidence in her ability to spearfish in the cloudy water seriously shaken, she walked over to a huge patch of those tall stalks swaying in the marsh water. Pulled two full armloads of the thickest ones out of the muck and laid them out on the shore. Cut off their thick twisting root balls and peeled off their long green leafy blades to get down to just the thick stalks. Put a dozen of the stripped down stalks on top of each other in a pile. Tied and knotted one end of the bundle together into a closed point with those long leafy blades she’d stripped off them. Then she picked up another one of the long stalks and curved it into a big circle to be the wide open end of the fish trapping basket, trimmed off the excess length with her knife and tied the circle shut with another long green leafy blade to hold the shape, and then slid that circle into the untied end of the bundle of stalks. Tied each stalk to the circle with the green leafy blades so that the whole thing was in the shape of a cone. And then she got to work weaving. Weaving the other stalks through the sides of the cone to reinforce its shape, to make it impossible for a fish to slip out between the stalks once they swam inside the cone.It took a few hours to finish weaving the stalks through the sides of the cone, and to make a smaller cone … the funnel entrance with the fist-sized hole in the center that went inside the big open end of the basket that the fish would swim in through but would have a hard time finding their way out of.But in the end, approaching midday, she had a pretty damn good looking fish trapping basket. Having the trap would probably triple her chances of catching a fish. Maybe more than triple her chances. She was so glad that Lexa had taught them how to make these traps. The traps had freed up so much time she and Madi used to have to spend spearfishing. And Madi had done a great job of teaching her how to make the baskets. She … kinda appreciated how strict Madi had been about her using the proper weaving technique now … Now that she was completely on her own in the wilderness and needed her basket to catch a fish and not have it slip through the cracks … literally.She put two fist sized rocks into the big cone to help it sink to the bottom of the marsh when she dropped it in the water.Now all the needed was some bait to put inside the big cone too to lure the fish into the basket, and then she could slip the funnel inside the wide end of the cone, tie the funnel into place with the leafy blades, and then drop the whole thing into the water to trap fish while she was out trying to spear some … All she needed was bait …Yeah … some bait ...Clarke sighed and put her hand over her eyes.What the fuck was she gonna use for bait?At home, they used the fish guts from the last fish they’d caught as bait …But out here … there were no fish guts from the last fish she’d caught.Clarke grumbled to herself.She needed some kind of meaty thing to lure the fish into her basket ...Plants would be useless as bait in a marsh like this … where there were plants literally everywhere else in the water for the fish to eat.She walked along the shoreline to see if there was some other kind of critter she could get with her 4-pronged spear to use pieces of for bait. But she didn’t see any. She saw a fuckload of minnows in the shallows, but after 20 minutes of non-stop attempts, she came to the conclusion that minnows were way too small and way too fast to spear.If she’d had some bait she probably could have caught a goddamn ton of minnows.Clarke closed her eyes and sighed.
Fuck!
The fish trap was her best shot at catching a fish in the muddy water.So she could marry Lexa.Clarke put her hand over her eyes.
Ok think.
She didn’t have fish guts or minnows to use as bait.Plants wouldn’t work as bait.She hadn’t seen any land animals since she’d arrived in this side of the valley that she could hunt to use their parts for bait …If she had to rely in just her own spearfishing to catch a fish in this cloudy water she was pretty sure that she was fucked.What was something edible that the fish would go for?That she had access too?Something bloody.Or … meaty …Or … gooey … like fish guts …And then she remembered what Madi had said back at the village. The day before all this. Before the trial had started.When Madi hadn’t been able to catch a fish to eat when she’d been alone in the valley, she said she’d eaten bugs. Said there were gooey ones … in wet dirt by the lake … under rocks.All around the marsh was wet dirt under rocks.Clarke hurried over to some stones on the shore and started flipping them over … and the third rock she flipped over had a few big white yucky grubs under it. She flipped over a few more rocks. Found a bunch more big white wriggling grubs.Ugh … she felt so bad that Madi had had to eat these things to survive.Clarke hadn’t had anything to eat in a day and a half besides a single bowl of hot leafy plant water and even she was not at the point where she’d be willing to eat one of these wriggling grubs.But the fish would probably go for it.These grubs … weren’t exactly bloody though … like the fish gut bait they usually used … Would the fish be able to smell that that the grubs were in the trap?Clarke said a silent apology to a grub, pressed her knife down to humanely behead it, and then sliced open its gooey body … and oh god … Grubs were so gross. And so fucking wriggly … even without a head … But all the goo … the fish would probably like that …Clarke took a deep breath, gathered a dozen grubs from under the rocks, put them on a flat stone, said the prayer from the Ark over them in Trig as she humanely killed them and sliced each one open down the center so there would be lots of goo to entice the fish.She took the handful of gooey grubs over to her fish trapping basket and used a green blade leaf from one of the stalks to tie the gooey grubs into a bait ball that would hopefully keep the grub pieces from floating out of the trap.She dropped the bait ball into the fish trapping basket, tied the funnel cone entrance over the wide end of the basket, and then dropped the basket into the water near the spot where she’d collected the tall stalks she’d used to make the trap.And then Clarke got to work spear fishing.She had been so fucking right.Spear fishing in the murky muddy water was damn near impossible.The water in the lake by the village was practically crystal clear.But here, she could barely see a thing in the muddy water. Had to poke with her spear whenever she saw the water move in an irregular way that might imply that a fish was there.She couldn’t see a damn thing. Even with the bright afternoon sun high overhead.But she kept at it. Spear fishing for hours.She felt things wriggle by her legs but never managed to spear anything.It was getting late.She hadn’t managed to spear even a single fish.She hoped to god that there was something in the trap.She was really fucking hungry too … maybe not hungry enough to eat a grub yet … but she only had a bowl of water from the grapevine branch waiting for her back at camp … and that thought made it impossible to completely exclude grubs from the menu.She probably only had two hours of sunlight left.Was so fucking tired from climbing that tree, from spearfishing, from making the basket trap, from worrying that she was gonna fail her test and not be able to marry Lexa …And she needed to get back to camp and set up her fire and drink some clean water before it got too dark.She made her way out of the water and over to her fish trapping basket. Reached down into the muck and pulled it up.And when she did, she could hear a big floppy fish inside it.She was fucking elated.She dragged the basket through the water to the shore, untied the funnel top and poured the fish out onto the bank.The fish looked … fucking prehistoric …It was big and black and had long wriggly whiskers and a big gaping mouth …And it was also quite obviously full of eggs … was a pregnant female … with the tell-tale bulge below its belly … The kind of fish that Lexa always insisted should be let go if they were ever caught in one of their traps … so that there would always be enough fish in the valley … The kind of fish that under normal circumstances, Clarke herself would have let go so that the valley’s fish population could recover … so that Nature could recover from all that had been lost after the devastation of praimfaya …Clarke slid the fish back into the basket.  Hurried to the water and submerged the end of the cone with the fish inside into the water so the fish didn’t die.But she stood in the water holding the basket for a long moment.
God she wanted to take that fish back to camp.
She wanted Lexa as her houman.She wanted the natblidas’ approval of their match.She wanted to put something that actually tasted good into Lexa’s bowl for dinner that night.She wanted to eat some real food too … she was so fucking hungry and this fish was definitely big enough to be a meal for two …But if Lexa was there … she wouldn’t want to eat that fish.Clarke was certain of that.She had no idea what the fish population of this marsh was like. Whether that particular type of fish had weathered the radiation okay, or if it had had its population in the marsh decimated by radiation exposure.That fish might be one of the last few of its kind on Earth … Its belly full of fifty more of itself … maybe a hundred more … enough to restore so many more fish like itself to marsh.If she had speared the fish … that would’ve been one thing … she wouldn’t have known if it had eggs or not when she’d speared it …But she did know that this one had eggs.And she wasn’t gonna marry Lexa under pretenses that Lexa would fundamentally disapprove of.She tipped over the basket in the water and watched the big black fish swim away.Carried the fish basket back to the shore … utterly defeated.She took a seat on the shore and let her eyes get teary as she stared out at the marsh in the late afternoon light.She was so tired and so hungry and dehydrated.And she had failed the test.And she needed to get back to camp and build a fire and wait for Madi or one of the other natblidas to come to her camp and see that she had failed.But at least she hadn’t totally betrayed Nature. Hadn’t betrayed the valley. Or Lexa’s morals. That would have been worse.Still though … this felt pretty bad.She still had Lexa of course.Madi had told her last night that the kids didn’t oppose them being together. That was fine. They just wanted her to prove herself before she became Lexa’s houman.She would just have to try again.Go through another test later.She’d be better prepared next time.She knew about using grubs as bait now and where to find them.Knew that fish traps were the best way to catch fish in this marsh.Knew that it was better to spend the time making two fish baskets than even bother with spear fishing.Knew that minnows … even the swarms and swarms of them along the shoreline  couldn’t be stabbed for bait with a spear …But … minnows could … probably be caught with bait … with grubs …Minnows were fish …The note that morning had said that Lexa wanted fish … it didn’t specify what kind …The gears in Clarke’s mind started turning …There were so many minnows in the water … along the shoreline … They clearly weren’t endangered like that bigger fish might be … And there were certainly enough of them for some kind of meal … vastly more than enough …Even if she had grubs to lure the minnows in though … how could she actually catch them? Physically get a hold of them and get them out of the water before they wriggled away?She did a quick inventory …She had … her backpack … could … open it up, put a ball of grubs inside it to lure the minnows in and drop it in the water … and then close it with the minnows inside …She had … her clothes … her shirt … could tie the spot above the neck hole and sleeves into a knot … to make it into a sort of sack … and then … sit down in the water with it … lay the shirt-sack down in the water with a big ball of gooey grubs in the center of it … wait for the minnows to swarm the grubs and then pull up the sides of the shirt to trap them inside it like a net … Could do the same thing with her pants … tie the ankles shut … throw some grub balls into the legs … wait for the minnows to swim into the pants and then lift the pants out of the water and dump the minnows onto the shore … or just … take them home in her pants …She didn’t have many hours of sunlight left … so she got straight to work.Put a knot in her shirt above the sleeves and neck hole so it was like a sack.Knotted the ankles of each of leg of her pants.Collected a lot of grubs from under rocks.
Oof … grubs were everywhere …
She said the prayer from the Ark over the pile of grubs and them turned them into four big balls of goo.She took her shirt sack and sat down in the shallow water where there were countless minnows … laid her shirt down in  the water between her knees like a flat sack and put a big ball if grubs in the center of it … and then sat very … very still … her hands gripping the sides of her shirt under the cool water …In less than a minute a swarm of minnows had gathered between her knees to attack the ball of grubs … She waited until there were far more minnows inside the scope of her shirt than she could even count … and then quickly lifted the sides of her shirt up out of the water and looked inside … As the water drained out of the material … she saw that there must have been at least 30 minnows inside her shirt … maybe more …She had fucking done it!
She’d caught fish!
Tiny fish …But still!She decided not to use her pants to catch more minnows.She was already cold from sitting bare legged in the water …It would be far preferable to be able to go back to her campsite wearing dry pants … To be able to sleep in dry pants …She stood up out of the water and dumped the minnows into her backpack, then returned to sit in the shallows again. Used the same ball of grubs as the first time …The minnows swarmed the ball again. Didn’t seem to mind that Clarke had just disappeared so many of their fellows moments before.And Clarke caught three more shirts full of minnows.Enough for a meal.There were still tons more minnows swarming the spot where she’d been sitting, that’d been attracted by the pieces of grubs in the water and the swarming, but she had already probably taken the equivalent of two descent-sized fish worth of minnows already.She stopped there. Didn’t want to take too many.She dropped the last two balls of grubs she hadn’t even had to use into the water to feed the minnows she hadn’t caught.Pulled on her jacket and pants and shoes to keep warm.She had nothing else to eat for dinner but minnows boiled in water from the grapevine back at camp … but she spotted the roots of the long stalks she’d used to make the basket on the shore. She rinsed off the roots in the marsh water and popped them into her backpack with the minnows. Maybe the roots were edible. Maybe the stalks were edible too. She snapped two of the remaining stalks on the shore into smaller pieces and put them into her backpack as well.And then she hurried back to camp, her knife in her pocket, carrying her dripping backpack and her dripping shirt in one hand, her fish trapping basket in the other, and her 4-pronged spear under her arm.If Madi came to her campsite that night, she’d show her the basket … thank her for being such a good teacher … tell her it had worked.When Clarke got back to camp, she brought the two full bowls of grapevine water back to her fireplace. Took a big drink from her bowl.And then got to work starting a fire with the bark material and firewood she’d collected that morning. Made a little nest of bark fibers for her ember. Created a friction ember with her hearth-board and spindle and bow. Had a decent sized fire going in maybe thirty minutes.She laid out her shirt and backpack to dry beside it.Sat by the fire in just her jacket and pants, letting it warm her up after her long day in the cool water as she cleaned up the roots from the backpack with her knife, trimming off the stringy ends to just leave the thick, pulpy white root material. She sliced up the roots into her and Lexa’s bowls. She had no idea what the roots tasted like. Didn’t want to taste them until after they’d been boiled since they’d been submerged in marsh water and she didn’t want to get sick.Soon enough there were too many slices of roots to fit in the two bowls. She let the bowls of roots boil by the fire … and then stabbed a slice of root with a stick and bit into it to test it. And huh … the soft boiled roots tasted kind of sweet … tasted … good actually … The texture was nice too …She wasn’t sure how well these sweet root slices would go with boiled minnows, but she was far too hungry to care.Lexa’s bowl was already full of water and boiling root slices. She ate some more of the boiled roots from her own bowl, groaning with satisfaction from finally having something as substantial and starchy as root slices in her belly.When she’d cleared a little more space in her bowl, she started pulling minnows out of her backpack, cleaning them as best she could on one of the flat stones that had been part of the circle of stones around her fire.The fish were very small …Difficult to slice open with just the very tip of her knife, but she did her best removing their guts with her knife and fingers and popped the rest of the fish whole, head, bones and all into Lexa’s bowl to boil it.Honestly, if she hadn’t eaten the starchy roots first and gotten a little burst of energy from that … she might not have had the energy to clean all the little fish. But she managed it. Even though there probably were over a hundred of them. She didn’t want to waste them though. They had died for this meal. She said the prayer from the Ark over them in Trig as her fingers worked in a little rhythm cleaning the tiny fish … a rhythm that started to became automatic from so much repetition.She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it was very dark by the time she’d finally filled Lexa’s bowl and her own with the minnows.She’d had to eat some of the root slices out of Lexa’s bowl to make room for all the little fish …But by the end of all her mini-fish cleaning, both her bowl and Lexa’s were piled high with boiled root slices and minnows.When she finally got to sip at her bowl … the taste of the boiled roots and fish was … interesting …The sweetness of the roots brought out the sweetness in the minnows, but the minnows still had a fishy taste.That was fine with Clarke though.The little fish were protein. Just tasting meat in her mouth gave her a little buzz of energy. Even though her teeth crunched on their little bones and fins.But she kept eating. Until her whole body felt warm and good from a full belly. From the campfire.She heard some crunching of leaves and turned to see Xander approaching.He had a grin on his face. His light brown hair a little mussed up from whatever he’d been up to in the woods. He was carrying a metal bucket by the handle with him.“Hei Clarke,” he greeted her with a little nod.Clarke grinned back at him, “Come sit.”He set down the bucket and took a seat by the fire beside her, “You had a very long day away from camp. Are you okay?”Clarke nodded and gave him a little smile, “I’m good.”It really had been a very long day though … So much work had gone into getting this fish meal for Lexa … to get the natblidas’ approval to be Lexa’s houman … But honestly, that only made Clarke all the more proud that she’d been able to pull it off. And Lexa deserved someone who would give their all for her. And Clarke had certainly given her all today.“So tell me …,” Xander grinned at her.Clarke nodded at Lexa’s bowl, “Boiled roots … and fish … tiny ones … but fish nonetheless. Please … have some.”Xander nodded and picked up Lexa’s bowl, fished out a tiny minnow with his fingers and held it up by the fire, “These are very small fish indeed … No luck with a spear I take it.”Clarke shook her head. “The water’s too cloudy for that … the fish basket works though.”Xander popped the little fish into his mouth and made a humming sound as he chewed.He looked back at her, “You caught these in the trap?”Clarke shook her head, “With bait and my shirt. Caught a bigger fish in the basket too but … I had to let it go.”Xander’s forehead furrowed and he popped one of the slices of root from Lexa’s bowl into his mouth, made a more pleased humming sound, then said, “You … let it go?”Clarke nodded, “It was full of eggs … so …”His expression softened, “Oh Clarke …”“Yeah …,” Clarke sighed, “Lexa wouldn’t like that … So … Had to let it go.”“Yes … she … would want that …,” Xander looked at her for a long moment, and then he reached over and put a hand on her shoulder, “I … cannot speak for the others … but you have my approval … Just for doing that … No matter what else happens with this bowl.”Clarke’s eyes got all watery and she grinned back at him, “Thank you. That … means a lot to me …”Xander nodded and pulled his hand away, popped another bite of root slice into his mouth from Lexa’s bowl.“Is Lexa okay?” Clarke asked.She hadn’t been away from Lexa since Lexa had first come to the valley. It helped that everything she was doing was for Lexa … but still … She missed her …Xander grinned at her, “I am told that Lexa is pacing a hole through the floor … awaiting your return … She did not approve of our … methods … the … abduction …”Clarke chuckled, “I’ve been abducted a few times … and I have to say … this was the gentlest one.”Xander barked out a laugh and then put a hand over his mouth, “Sorry … I … should not have laughed. I … just … have never known anyone who has actually been abducted … And definitely not more than once. For us … escaping from an abduction is just … an exercise … We didn’t mean to scare you …”Clarke shook her head, “I was only scared for a second.”Xander sighed, “Lexa told us not to harm you. And we are trying to be careful … but … you surprised us today … climbing that tree … We … weren’t sure what to do …”Clarke bit her lip and looked back at him. Apparently the natblidas had seen that. Which … wasn’t great … She definitely didn’t want them thinking that doing risky stuff like that was okay.“I … shouldn’t have done that …,” Clarke said, “That was too dangerous.”He nodded, “Please … be careful … You never have to do anything so dangerous. If you need something … just … call out to us and we will come help … or we will help you find another way. There is no shame in it. No penalty.”Clarke nodded.Xander looked at her. “If anything were to happen to you … Lexa would be … extremely displeased with us.”Clarke smiled at him, “I’ll keep that in mind. We wouldn’t want her to be displeased with us. But if I do something dumb … that’s my own fault. Not yours.”Xander shook his head a little, “We would be displeased with ourselves if anything happened to you too. In our family, we look out for each other … If you ever need anything, please … just ask.”Clarke gave him a watery smile.“You’ve done so much for us …,” he looked at her, “… sharing your home with us … teaching us … Madi … None of us ever thought we would have a home like this. It … means so much to us. We can never repay this gift.”Clarke sighed.If Xander’s blood didn’t happen to be black, there was a good chance he would have grown up in a village like this one, with his parents. With his biological family. He wouldn’t have been taken to the tower and had such a strictly controlled life …where he had to have so much self-discipline, where he had to learn how to fight and train everyday … Wouldn’t have had to study things like military strategy and do exercises on things like how to escape an abduction …The life in the valley the kids would have now would just be … a normal life … The kind of life any kid with red blood would have probably just taken for granted. And … maybe should take for granted. A normal childhood with the freedom to be a kid was what Xander and all the natblidas should have had.And Xander, of all the kids, seemed to appreciate the little things about life in the valley the most. He was a good student in school. Diligent in his studies. Like all the natblidas. But he was also the one most likely to spend an afternoon just laying on a hillside watching the birds fly over the valley. The one first in line to go investigate mosses in the lake with Lexa. He liked to explore. Was a bit if a dreamer. Underneath all his training, Clarke suspected that he wasn’t really built for a life of so much structure and discipline. He could do it … could excel in that life … all the natblidas could. But it wasn’t really who he was as a person.Clarke reached over and squeezed his knee, “You don’t owe me anything. You deserve this place. All of you do. It’s your home. And it makes me so happy to see how much you love it. How careful you are to make sure we take care of it.”Xander sighed, “We should not have put you through these trials.”“I want it,” Clarke said instantly, “I want to earn your respect. Person to person. And I wanna earn Lexa too.”Xander grinned at her, “You are very much like us … I … don’t know if you see that yet … but it is true.”Clarke looked at him for a moment and then nodded.She’d had a very strict upbringing too … On the Ark, there had been so many rules … so much self-discipline required … even of little kids. Maybe that was why she appreciated the valley so much too. The freedom of it. The simplicity. A simple life in a village was probably the kind of childhood she should’ve had as well ... Maybe that was why giving Madi and the natblidas that kind of life now was so important to her … felt so … healing …When she’d gotten to the ground, she’d ended up having to be a child soldier too … Had had to take on the responsibilities of leadership very young ... just like the natblidas had been trained to do …He pulled a kerchief out of his pocket and dipped it into his bucket, pulled it out wet and said quietly, “Please … give me your hands.”Clarke held out her hands … and only then realized that they were stained with fish goo.He got to work gently cleaning them with the kerchief and said quietly, “We are leaving this bucket here with you. It is filled with clean, boiled water. If you wish to continue the trials … you need to drink more to stay strong.”Clarke nodded, “Thank you.”He pressed the soft kerchief into her now clean hands and smiled, “Anything else you need … you let us know.”“Please tell Madi thank you … for teaching me how to make a good basket trap …,” Clarke grinned and then nodded over at her trap, “It worked … even for a big fish.”He looked over at the trap, studying the weave of it with his eyes, “I will tell her … when I see her next.”Clarke’s forehead furrowed, “She isn’t with you?”Xander shook his head, “We each still have chores to do in the village … And … Lexa must be watched to ensure that she does not come here and interrupt your trials …”Clarke barked out a laugh.She could so imagine that … Lexa sneaking through the woods to find her … smuggling her a sack of rabbit jerky so the kids didn’t see.Xander picked up Lexa’s bowl and gave her a little nod, “Reshop Clarke … and … I wish you luck …”Clarke grinned at him and watched him walk away into the darkness.Her heart feeling all warm and fuzzy from getting his approval of their match …Her belly feeling warm and good from minnow and root soup.She used the water from the bucket to make herself another bowl of it, put some big logs onto the fire and then burrowed into her leaf pile. Let her weary muscles relax from her long day, let her mind drift off into a peaceful sleep … grinning to herself over her victory. —- Day 3 —- The next morning, Clarke dug her way out of her leaf pile to find Lexa’s bowl clean and waiting for her by the burned out campfire with a little note in it.She didn’t sleep quite as well as she had the first night.The leaves were starting to get flatter and provide less of a cushion against the hard cold ground under her as she slept.She was a little sore … her muscles still aching a bit from all the exertion of spearfishing the day before.And her sleep had been interrupted a few times by what she was pretty sure was a mouse who had burrowed into her leaf pile and scurried around her legs.If she hadn’t been so exhausted, she probably would’ve burst out of the leaves and poked at the pile with a stick until she was certain she had scared it away.But she’d been so tired that she’d merely shifted her legs a little to spook it and went back to sleep.Honestly, if it had just curled up and gone to sleep beside her instead of scurrying over her legs she would’ve been fine with that …She picked up the note in the bowl and read out the neatly printed text.
Tiny fish are still fish. Well done. Today, Lexa would like a nice meal.
Clarke smiled.This was a very welcome note.All she had to do was put out her fish trap in the marsh and spend the day foraging plants, cooking them to test them out and experimenting with the different items to make them taste good.A day of foraging and cooking.Her sore muscles were grateful for the reprieve.She drank some of the clean water from the bucket, then went around collecting firewood and kindling. More firewood than she normally collected since she would be spending more time cooking and taste testing to make a good meal.And a day of snacking on different things she foraged might even give her body the equivalent of two or even three much needed meals by the time the day was done …She took another big drink of water, put on her now dry shirt after its night by the fire, put on her jacket, grabbed her backpack, her knife, the bucket to collect more water, her fish trapping basket and spear, and headed back to the marsh.Soon enough she had her fish basket loaded with two balls of gooey grubs and dropped it down into the water on the other side of the big patch of marshy stalks where she’d caught the black fish the day before.She put on her backpack and wandered along the shoreline with her spear while the fish trap did its work.There had to be other plants and creatures to eat around the marsh.There was so much water there, so many varieties of plants around the marsh and growing under the water … It was an ecosystem … a habitat. She just needed to figure out where good to eat plants and creatures were … do a bit of hunting and gathering along the shore.She saw a few little tracks in the mud … tiny paw prints … squirrel tracks she thought … and … some bigger hand-like prints. She wasn’t sure what kind of creature the bigger tracks were from … but she was glad to see them.There didn’t seem to be larger mammals in the valley. Just rabbits. Squirrels. Mice. And now this mystery creature.There might be more critters up in the gorge. But the gorge was too rocky and windy and barren of food to make spending much time up there finding out worthwhile … She hoped that as many creatures as possible had managed to hunker down and stay safe in the rocks up there when the death wave had jumped over the valley.It seemed like a miracle that so many squirrels and rabbits and mice had survived the radiation that had killed the villagers.But these creatures were the descendants of the rabbits and squirrels and mice who’d been tough enough to survive the first praimfaya … There must have been something about them that made even their offspring many generations removed less susceptible to radiation than humans.It wouldn’t surprise her if that were true.All the animals Clarke had seen during her time on the ground, both before praimfaya and after it, seemed so much better suited to survive than humans did. The other animals all ran so much faster than humans. Had the right kind of sharp teeth. Had super useful claws. Had soft fur to keep them warm and protect them from the sun.Humans on the other hand had no soft fur. Got sunburned just from standing outside in the sunlight. Clarke could feel the tender pink spots on her own cheeks just from being out fishing the day before without the protection of the canopy of shady leaves in the woods.Humans were far less graceful than all the little birds too, who lifted into the air on their tiny feathers and arched high across the sky on the breeze.Were less elegant than the shiny streamlined fish that zoomed through the water with just the flick of a tail too, who were covered in a layer of sparkly scale armor that was surprisingly tough … but that was also very beautiful. As beautiful as the most delicate silks a human might wear …Even the bugs seemed far more impressive than humans … With their hard shells. With all their little legs. With their ability to carry things so many times heavier than the weight of their tiny little bodies.Clarke mused over those thoughts as she wandered along the shoreline. Taste testing leaves. Mostly spitting them right back out. Prodding at the beds of reeds and marshy patches along the bank with her spear to see if anything edible moved or jumped out.There were plenty of bugs in the marshy grasses. Plenty of grasshoppers leapt out when she poked at the reeds with her spear.She didn’t try to eat one though.Maybe they were secretly delicious. Full of crunchy protein.But … her belly was still too full from her minnow soup the night before for her to be interested in finding out.She saw some little flashes of slithery things in the thick vegetation under the water by some parts of the shore. They were quick though. Just a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye, moving through the mats of thick vegetation under the water.She wandered all the way over to the far end of the marsh and found a big open field of light green ferns with curled up fronds poking up into the morning light. Curled fronds were very good to eat. Delicious. She knew that from the ferns that grew in the woods near the village. But the curled up fronds had to be boiled first … otherwise they’d make you sick … At least .. the type of fern fronds that grew near the village had to be boiled first … The field was full of them, so she filled up her backpack with a bunch of the fronds.The fronds on their own would make a good meal, but she wanted fish to go with them. Wanted whatever delicious plants or things she found during the day to go with them in some sort of stew.She wandered back to the edge of the marsh … walked along it a little ways … and then … by a log next to the water … she spotted … a creature … A new creature that she’d never seen before ... A big round ball of gray-brown fur almost as big as Otan, sitting up on its back feet, munching on a big green frog clasped in its pretty human-like little hands …And … at the creature’s feet were three smaller balls of gray-brown fur … with little black and white striped tails poking out behind them, tails that were almost as long as their little bodies. The little ones toddled around under the dangling legs of the frog their mom was munching on, tussled and wrestled with each other in the mud over the meaty bits of pre-chewed frog that dropped out of their mom’s mouth onto the ground for them to eat.Clarke crouched down behind some reeds to watch.Her heart fluttering wildly in her chest.These creatures, the little cubs were so fucking adorable … it was all Clarke could do not to squeal with excitement like a little kid.And … she might have accidentally squealed a little … because the mom turned and looked in the direction of the tall reeds she was hiding behind.A huge grin curled into Clarke’s cheeks as she looked back at the face of the creature.It had short, very soft looking triangle ears perched on the top of its furry head that were rounded at the tips … and it had a mask of black fur over its eyes …A mask of black fur that looked a lot like the mask of black warpaint Lexa wore around her eyes when she went into battle as Heda.One of the cubs stood up on its back legs and looked in Clarke’s direction too. Then a second cub stood up and looked her way.They all had a black mask around their eyes.And Clarke resolved right then and there to name these creatures after Lexa.They looked … a little like the wildcats in the nature documentaries she’d watched in school on the Ark growing up … Or … maybe … these creatures looked … a bit more like … a bear than a cat?A tiny bear … or a fat cat that could stand up on its back legs … and … had human-ish hands?Clarke shook her head a little.No … they were more like little bears.A Lexa bear?A Heda bear?She decided she liked ‘Lexa bear’ better.And … Lexa bears should be like … sacred … protected … No one should be allowed to hunt them … Because they were like … Lexa’s animal … and they were just … too ridiculously cute to hunt.Their fur looked really soft ...But whatever.They were sacred. Protected. No hunting Lexa bears.There.It was decided.She’d tell the kids about the protected status of Lexa bears when she got home …Would … draw them pictures of Lexa bears so that they knew what they looked like …
Fuck the little ones were cute ….
Reaching up with their little hands to swat at the frog. Nipping at it with their little muzzles. Tackling each other and rolling around on the muddy shore.
Ugh.
So fucking cute.She watched them for as long as she could, figuring out how she would draw them, paid attention to their details, their black button eyes, their cute little black noses, the curves and lines of their fluffy bodies.Clarke was sad to see them go when the mom finished her frog and then toddled off into the woods on all fours with her three little cubs trailing behind her in a line … like how the natblidas trailed after Lexa when they went to train …She’d definitely be drawing the Lexa bear cubs too …Maybe she’d draw a frog as well … if she could spot an intact one. It was good to know that there were frogs in the marsh too.Clarke made her way back to check her fish trapping basket. Nothing yet. But that was okay. It was still early. She had plenty of time to catch something. And the bait balls of grubs inside looked to still be holding together okay.She dropped the basket back into the water.Decided to take a bucket full of marsh water back to camp … get started boiling the fern fronds and taste testing them. Keep an eye out for other edible plants on her walk home.And … now that she was looking … she did spot some patches of plants on the forest floor that looked promising …She found a patch of short leafy plants growing all around the base of a tree. Put down her bucket and dug one out of the ground with her knife. Inspected the roots, the dirty little bulb at the base. Shaved the dirt off the bulb with her knife and popped it into her mouth … It tasted … good … a little like the garlic bulbs in their garden in the village … a little stronger though … more oniony. They would taste good in a soup … with fish. She tasted the leaves too. The stalks. Dug up, shave-cleaned, and popped several more bulbs into her mouth. Pulled up a dozen more of them and put them in her backpack. Took less than a third of the oniony plants in that little patch so that there would be many more left to grow and spread in this part of the woods.But as she continued her walk back to camp, she noticed that there were a actually a lot patches of those short leafy plants with the little oniony bulbs in this part of the valley.Plenty of them.Maybe they could transplant some. Put them in the garden in the village to grow.They really were tasty … a satisfying snack that tasted more substantial and had more flavor than many of the plants they’d been eating …Even though … Clarke was pretty sure that her breath was … kinda horrendous from eating so many of the oniony bulbs raw …That was okay though …Unless Lexa showed up, the state of her breath was of no concern.That would be nice though … if Lexa did show up … If Lexa appeared in the forest to have the nice dinner that Clarke was about to make her with fern fronds and oniony bulbs and hopefully fish …It would be even nicer if Clarke had a decent bed for Lexa to sleep in beside her.Yeah … while she was boiling her cooking experiments … she’d get more soft leaves for her bed …When she got back to camp, Clarke got a fire going. Cut up the fern fronds in the bucket of marsh water to boil them. Dropped just a few of the oniony bulbs in the water too … just to test out what they tasted like boiled.And while they boiled, she collected a lot more armloads of dried leaves off the forest floor to make a much thicker pile to burrow into at night, to put more distance between her and the hard ground.She found a piece of wood she could carve into something roughly in the shape of a spoon to stir her soup, tried the boiled fronds … which tasted lovely … different from the ones that grew near the village but still quite tasty. The boiled oniony bulbs tasted excellent too. Flavored the water nicely. She’d definitely be munching on a bunch more of those oniony bulbs during her time in this part of the valley.She now had boiled fronds. Boiled oniony root bulbs. A bunch of oniony flavored boiled water that was safe to drink … with a bit of marsh sediment settled at the bottom. But she figured she’d just scoop the soup off the top of the water with her and Lexa’s bowls when it was time for dinner and hopefully wouldn’t get too much sediment in the bowls.It was nice to just putter around camp and take it easy … be a little lazy.All she had left to do was wait on the fish to get caught in the trap.She wandered around a little to investigate any other patches of plants she could find on the forest floor.Munched on leaves.Found a short plant with big dark green leaves and dug it out of the ground, pulled it up by the thick root, then taste tested a leaf … and promptly spit it back out. She investigated its thick root, shaved off the dirt along the sides and took a tentative bite … The root tasted … sweet … really sweet … Even sweeter than the roots of the starchy stalks that grew in the marsh. This root could almost be like … dessert … even raw. Uncooked. Had a nice satisfying crunch to it too. She gathered the roots of a few of those plants to be dessert.Found some nice big flat stones to lay on their tall sides on either side of her campfire.Carved some sticks into pointy skewers she could poke through a fish … or ideally through thick halves of a fish … She could rest the ends of the skewers on the rocks on either side of the fire to cook the sides of the fish evenly, could easily turn the skewers over on the side stones when one side was done cooking.Her cooking station set up. Her water boiled and fronds and oniony bulbs already precooked, all she needed was a fish.She picked up her knife and backpack and wandered back to the marsh in the late afternoon. Hoping that she had trapped a fish that was ok to eat this time.She wandered out into the water, over to where her basket trap was, heaved it out of the water and felt that it was very heavy, heard flopping sounds inside.Perfect.She was grinning to herself as she dragged the basket through the water to shore … stepped a ways up onto the bank and away from the water, pulled off the funnel cone entrance to the basket, carefully poured out the contents … and then screamed and jumped back … dropping the basket.
Holy fuck.
Was it filled with snakes?!?Or like … one giant fucking snake?Clarke kept her distance from the long black body wriggling furiously on the muddy shore …
Ugh.
It looked so gross as it twisted itself into big corkscrewing coils over and over and over again.And it was fucking huge.As thick as her bicep …As long as her whole fucking arm … from her shoulder all the way to the tips of her fingers long. Longer maybe …It looked … slimy … shiny ….Looked … like it was straight out of someone’s nightmares …Definitely looked like a huge, thick, slimy black snake … but … it had a fin … starting about halfway down its body … one long fin down its back … another long fin running from halfway down its belly to the end of it.Clarke blew out a breath.Ok … they’d just be having whatever this was for dinner … some kind of … monstrous looking eel.She put her knife down beside its furiously wriggling body … pressed her lips tight together and then crouched down beside it … grabbed it behind its wriggling head and slid her hand down its long body to see if it was bulging with eggs anywhere.She had no idea if this kind of creature even laid eggs … maybe they just manifested in the water everytime someone had a nightmare about them …She couldn’t feel any bugling on her first pass … but she could feel that it was incredibly fucking slimy … so fucking slimy … It kept wriggling out of her grip over and over again … but Clarke tried her damndest not to scream every time it did its creepy slithery corkscrewing thing … even though the sight of it slithering like that sent shivers down her spine …After several passes of her hand feeling down its slimy belly, when she was reasonably confident that it wasn’t full of eggs, she said the prayer from the Ark to it in Trig. Picked up her knife and then bopped it hard on the head with the handle to hopefully kill it or at least knock it unconscious.She decided to go ahead and clean it on the shore … so no bugs or mice or other creatures would be attracted to the scent of blood and guts at her campsite …Fuck … it was so goddamn slimy as she gripped it to saw her knife back and forth to cut off its head … so fucking slimy …She’d had plenty of practice cleaning fish.Had killed and cleaned so many in her time in the valley.But somehow she was still totally grossed out by handling this slimy creature.It looked so totally different from the bright, sparkly, clean looking fish that came out of the lake by the village.This creature looked like something that waited in the dark muck to slither around your feet and bite off your toes.God … this probably was the kind of creature that she’d been feeling sliding past her legs when she’d been out spearfishing the day before.Yet another reason to stick to using the fish trapping basket ...She forced her hand to grip its slimy body as she sliced just the very tip of the knife carefully up its long body it to remove the entrails, and reminded herself that she was doing this for Lexa.That she was making a nice meal for her.That this creature probably tasted better than it looked …Honestly, it had to taste better than it looked …It was impossible for something to taste as bad as this creature looked …But as she cleaned it, she got to thinking how kind of amazing it was …How the slime made it so hard to get a hold of … How simple and elegant the creature was … It only had a spine … had no other bones for her to remove.And it was clever … didn’t just lay on the shore waiting to die … It tried to wriggle its way back to the water …It wasn’t soft and cuddly like the Lexa bears were, but it had a kind of monstrous beauty.She might not love this creature, but she could respect it.And it was covered with so much meat … thick fillets of meat that would make an excellent and totally filling meal for her and Lexa.Honestly, it was so meaty and huge, it could be six very filling meals.She put its guts inside the fish trapping basket as bait, closed the top of it and put it back out in the water to catch tomorrow’s meal.To catch some breakfast maybe.She hadn’t had breakfast in days.She rinsed off the eel’s long body in the marsh to hopefully get rid of a bit more of the slime, sliced the eel up into thick fillets with her knife and rinsed off her hands. Pulled a big leaf off a plant by the shore to wrap up the tall stack of thick eel fillets and keep her now clean hands slime-free. Put her backpack on, slid her spear through the straps behind her back to carry it, and then headed back to camp carrying the big leaf full of eel fillets in her hands.When she got back to camp, she set down the leaf-full of fillets on one of the stones around her fireplace … got the flames bright and roaring again … sliced up two of the fillets into her metal bucket of water with the pre-cooked fronds and oniony bulbs to make an eel soup, pushed the bucket close to the fire to boil again. Poked the skewer sticks she’d made earlier through the remaining 4 thick eel fillets and got them cooking over the flames.And it wasn’t even dark yet. The sun was just beginning to set …She could tell from just the smell that the eel fillets were gonna taste amazing and said a quiet thank you to the big scary eel.She was so looking forward to eating something more substantial than plants and minnows and roots. She sliced up an oniony bulb over two of the fillets and the sweet root she’d found over the other two fillets to give them a little more flavor just in case.When her soup bucket had been boiling for a little while, and the eel fillets were looking nicely golden, she took a bite of everything.The soup.The oniony fillets. The fillets with sweet root on them.God … so fucking good …Eel might be her new favorite food.It was even better than chicken.The meat tasted sweet and soft and a little oily in a good way. The skin was crispy and fucking delicious.Clarke cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted out, “Dinner time!” a few times in case the natblidas were around somewhere. She had more than enough for them too.It was Day 3 and she’d finally made a meal that she was actually proud to serve. Something anyone would want to eat. Something Lexa would want to eat for sure.And in a few minutes, Penn showed up at her little campfire.“Hei Clarke … It smells good,” he grinned at her.“Join me,” she grinned back.He took a seat beside her and she handed him an eel skewer.He groaned into the bite and Clarke beamed. The natblidas were not effusive, so that little groan meant a lot.“This is excellent … delicious,” he said and took another bite.Clarke’s smile got even bigger. That was two compliments.“It’s eel I think … or … some kind of water snake …,” she said, and dipped Lexa’s bowl into the bucket to get him some oniony frond soup. Used the spoon she’d made to fish out a big chunk of eel and more fronds to go into the bowl.He sipped at it and hummed, “Lexa would be lucky to have this meal.”Clarke nodded.She would fucking love it if Lexa were there to have some.“Yeah … I miss her,” she sighed.He chuckled, “It’s only been 3 days …”Clarke grinned back at him, “Well … I kinda waited 2 years for her to come here … and … my whole life before that … so …”He chuckled again, “She’s worth waiting for.”Clarke smiled, “I totally agree” and sipped her soup.He took another bite of the eelfillet and said, “We should smoke this … make it into jerky.”It was a very Penn thing to say.Penn was their inventor.Was extremely practical.Was always coming up with new things.He had invented their solar showers. The hammocks. Had been figuring out how to use some of the tools in Louwoda Kliron Kru’s barn. Had been one of the kids who’d been helping Lexa figure out all the different stuff they could do with corn, and how to use the dehydrated corn kernels in the barn too.Clarke was pretty sure her dad would have loved Penn, his interest in inventing and engineering.He’d been very quiet when he’d first come to the valley, soft spoken, but he’d been opening up a bit more since then.He was still a quiet one though. The barn had sort of become his workshop, where he tinkered on his own and fixed things that needed fixing.He and Lexa shared a love of tools. Of building things like the fish traps.She wasn’t surprised at all that his first thought after tasting the eel was what else could be done with it. How it could be smoked. Dried. Preserved.She nodded, “Definitely. I think eel might be my new favorite food. And check this out …” She handed him one of the oniony bulbs, and then one of the sweet roots she’d foraged that day.He hummed as he tasted each one, “They would make good additions to the garden.”They chatted for a little while about how they might prepare the sweet roots if they got them to grow in their garden back at home. What they could do with the oniony bulbs. How they would go well with chicken and fish. How they might send out little teams every once in a while to trap eels and bring them back to village for smoking so they would last a long time and could be eaten whenever their kru wanted it.She could practically see the wheels in Penn’s mind spinning as he thought through new possibilities.And Clarke liked that he called them a kru.Which kru someone belonged to had been super important to the Grounders before praimfaya. But these kids, though they had all come from different krus, hadn’t really been a part of any of those krus they’d come from either. They’d grown up in the tower. Had had a life so different from those in any kru. Only had each other really. But they had a real kru now. A kru with Clarke and Madi. A kru with a beautiful home in nature.By the time it was dark, Penn’s head was full of plans. Clarke told him that when they were done eating he should not only take Lexa’s bowl of eel soup, but also the last big fillet. It was definitely big enough to feed two people. She had no idea who else might be out in the woods with him, if there was anyone at all with him. But she suspected he wasn’t alone. The kids were supposed to take a buddy with them whenever they went out into the woods. She hadn’t seen the natblidas camp though … hadn’t actually seen them at all during her time in the woods except for when one of them showed up at her fire each night.“Do you … have someone with you to help you eat that?” Clarke asked.He grinned at her and turned his head, said, “Otan” to a tree.And then Otan, little 3 and a half year old Otan stepped out from behind a tree not even 10 feet away from them.Clarke grinned at his chubby cheeks, “I didn’t hear you come.”He lifted his little chin, the way Lexa did, and said very seriously, “I am good at sneaking.”Clarke had to stifle a laugh.Otan was such a little bruiser, so noisy. His siblings must’ve been working on giving him a little more of the quiet refinement that the rest of them all seemed to possess.Tris, their 4 year old stepped out from behind another tree and said, “He is okay at sneaking … You didn’t hear him ‘cause you were distracted by Penn.”Otan shot her a salty look.Clarke grinned at her, “Well … you’re both much better at sneaking than I am …”It was true.Madi had shown Clarke how to step quietly through the woods when they’d hunted together during their years alone in the valley. But Clarke’s steps never seemed to be as quiet as Madi’s. It was like Clarke just wasn’t built to be a hunter like the rest of them were.“I also caught a mouse …,” Otan said stiffly.Tris sighed and took a seat by Penn, “You can’t eat mice. They’re too small.”Otan huffed and plopped down beside Clarke, grumbled under his breath, “I could eat a mouse.”“How ‘bout you try this instead …,” Clarke said and picked up the last big eel steak skewer from the fire, split it into two, put the second half on a second skewer and handed one to each of the little ones.Otan took a big bite and mumbled, “Mmm … mmm,” over and over again as he wolfed down each bite.Clarke filled her bowl with soup and put it beside him.“This is very tasty Clarke,” Tris said politely  and took another dainty bite.Even though she was so young, Tris already seemed to have the politeness and bearing of a leader.Had perfect manners.Was precocious in school.Was already good at reading.Wanted to read anything and everything she could get her hands on … or at least wanted to sound out the words in Clarke’s notebooks, even if she didn’t understand what all the words meant yet.She asked a lot of questions in school.When she finished her own homework, she tried to do Callie’s too.And she could almost keep up with Callie, who was almost two years her senior.Clarke told the little ones about the eel. How it was as big as her arm and slimy and wriggly and clever. How it had no bones inside it except for its spine and skull, and had lots of sharp little teeth.“Cool …,” Otan grinned. A word he had definitely picked up from Clarke and Madi.“Can we see the head?” Tris asked.Clarke pursed her lips. She must have left it on the shore when she’d cleaned it. The kids probably would have boiled the head as part of the soup. They never wasted anything.“I’ll bring it back to the village with me … if the Lexa bears haven’t taken it …” Clarke answered.Penn’s posture stiffened, “You saw a bear?”“A Lexa bear …,” Clarke smiled back at him, “They’re only this tall …,” Clarke held out a hand over the ground to show him how big, “They’re furry and gray and have a mask of black fur around their eyes … like Lexa’s warpaint. Very cute and cuddly looking. With little hands.”Penn’s posture relaxed a little.“It had cubs too …,” Clarke looked at Tris, “The cutest little cubs with striped tails.”Tris beamed back at her, “I will look for them.”“Their fur …,” Penn started.Clarke shook her head, “They’re not for hunting. We’re gonna leave them alone. They’re Lexa’s bears. Her animal. They should be protected.”Penn just looked at her blankly.But Clarke would not be swayed on this point.“They’re the biggest land animal I’ve seen since I’ve been here …,” Clarke added, “… and I’ve only ever seen the one … with just 3 little cubs. For all we know … they may be the last of their kind. And even if they aren’t … we shouldn’t take the only other meat eating animal besides us. They may be important for the health of the valley.”Penn nodded at her practical answer.But Clarke’s real reason for wanting them protected was mostly sentimental.Was because they were cute and they reminded her of Lexa.She’d go to the Kliron Heda and get a special decree that they were a protected species if she had too.She had special pull with the Kliron Heda.Penn looked at Otan, “What do you think … Did Clarke pass your test?”Otan grinned as he chewed his big bite of eel and nodded.Clarke nudged his shoulder, “This was your test?”He swallowed his bite, “Yeah … I wanted something good to eat. And … camping food isn’t as good as home food … usually …”Tris arched an eyebrow at him, “Rabbit jerky is good.”Otan shook his head, “Not this good …,” and slurped from his bowl of soup.When the kids left her camp that night, taking a last bowl of soup with them in Lexa’s bowl … which Clarke suspected would go to Otan … Clarke was feeling so warm and good. From the hearty meal. From the company of Penn and the little natblidas. From the fun of teaching them about eels and Lexa bears.If she had lived out her life on the Ark, she would have been a doctor.But in the valley, in this life, she got to be a teacher. And she loved it … Loved teaching the kids all the things she knew in their little school.And besides being a teacher, she got to be what the Arkers would call “a savage”.A primitive.Lived the kind of life that early humans must have lived. Such a different life than the one she’d lived on the Ark … surrounded by screens and tech and cold metal walls. Almost every single thing on the Ark was manmade. Plastic or metal. The environment, the temperature entirely regulated by humming machines. There were no creatures. No vast varieties of green leafy plants. No birds or blue skies or sunsets. No rain or warm breezes. No smells of campfires or flowers. No dirt. She only ever saw those things in the videos of the old world she’d watched on her family’s tablet growing up.Living in space was the absolute pinnacle of human ingenuity. The solar panels. The water recycling systems. Even the very underwhelming food the Ark’s replicators produced. Being able to survive at all … for any length of time in the cold dark nothingness of space … a place completely devoid of oxygen, devoid of everything except what was inside that metal ship … was such a huge technological feat.But Clarke wouldn’t go back to space for anything now. Even if there was a ship that had amazing food and the most cozy and comfortable furnishings. Even if it had the best medical bay and she would never feel even a single second of pain or discomfort ever again.Nothing could replace how incredible it felt to live surrounded by nature.Before Raven had even finished her explanation of how they could all escape the death wave if they took Becca’s rocket up to the Ring, Clarke had already known that she would not be going into space with her friends. She wouldn’t leave the ground if there was even the slightest chance her nightblood would allow her to live on the ground with Lexa.But even if she didn’t have nightblood in her veins, she wouldn’t have gone back into space with them. She could never go back to that life after knowing what it felt like to live on the ground.She was surprised that they all wanted to.Living in space, surrounded by all that cold metal, with so little beauty, would be far more brutal than she could endure after having lived on the ground.Even now, nestled in a pile of crunchy leaves, able to feel the chill of the night air creeping in, she wouldn’t have traded it for the softest bed in space. —- Day 4 —- The next morning, Clarke crawled out of her leaf pile just as the sun was coming up.The note in Lexa’s bowl said:
Lexa needs you to make her something. Be at camp mid-morning to learn what.
Clarke hummed at the note.Huh …This was gonna be … a different kind of test.She was up for it.She drank what was left of the cold soup water and ate the leftover fronds in the metal bucket.It wasn’t nearly as good cold, but that didn’t really matter.Drinking the water was the important thing.And with any luck, she’d be having fish for breakfast from the basket trap and eel gut bait she’d set out in the marsh the day before.She could kinda use a bath too.A proper bath.Not just a dip in the marsh to get her basket trap.And she probably should have set up a better shelter by now …The weather had been good.Which she was grateful for.But she should be prepared for rain anyway.And it wouldn’t take all that long to build a better shelter.She just needed one long, straight-ish branch to be the spine, the highest point of her “house”. She’d prop up the spine pole at one end with two shorter branches that had a Y in their ends … that would be angled up from the ground on either side of the entryway to hold up the spine branch. Then all she had to do was lean a bunch of shorter branches against the sides of the spine branch and fill the space inside it with a bed of leaves, then cover the whole thing with a mountain of leaves to trap her body heat in and keep the water out.Madi had shown her how to make that kind of shelter on one of their first survival training camping trips. She’d said there was someone from her village who had lived in a shelter like that. Someone who insisted on living on his own in the woods, away from all the other villagers.She said that the kids in the village had all been afraid of him.Even the adults were kinda afraid of him.She said he was like a monster.He talked to himself.Yelled at things that weren’t there.He rarely came to the village … only to see his parents every few months or so.But when he did show up, Madi said he smelled terrible. Stunk. Could be smelled from a far distance away.She said that when he came to the village, he walked straight to his parents’ house, hissing and muttering to himself. Didn’t talk to anyone but his parents.His parents cut his hair and trimmed his beard and nails and cleaned him up, and then he’d disappear back into the woods.Madi said that after praimfaya came, when she’d been alone, out searching for food in the forest, she’d found his leaf covered shelter. His big muddy boots poking out of the little entrance, still on his feet. Like he was sleeping.She had watched it for a full day, sat outside it, a safe distance away, her knife clutched in her fist, looking at his dirty boots. Waiting. To see if he was still alive.And when she was sure he was dead, when his boots hadn’t moved all day, she’d summoned up all her courage and investigated his little house of leaves and branches. Figured it out. Because she needed to build herself a shelter too … She didn’t want to stay in the village … with all the dead bodies of the people she’d known ... She’d decided that she’d rather live in the woods. So she’d learned how to build a shelter by investigating his, her fingers pinching her nose closed the whole time.He still smelled terrible.But this time, it was because he was dead.She had been too afraid to actually look at him though.And when she was done figuring out his shelter, Madi had set his leaf house on fire to dispose of his body. Told him his fight was over.Came back the next day and found just ash and a skeleton.His was the only body Madi had disposed of herself.She’d left the bodies of the other villagers, of her family, right where they’d fallen.Had hoped that maybe if she just left them there they would come back somehow …But she’d made an exception for the village monster.Burned his body.So she’d be able to sleep at night knowing that he was dead. That she didn’t need to be afraid of him anymore.Clarke had explained to her the concept of mental illness. That some people could be sick in their minds. See things that weren’t there. Hear things that weren’t there. That it made them confused. Made them scared of other people.Madi had found that kinda hard to understand, but she’d said that she was … kinda grateful to him … for showing her how to live away from the village … when it was too hard for her to be there …And Clarke was grateful to him too.That was the perfect kind of shelter to set up in this part of the forest. Very easy to build.She gathered her firewood, enough for breakfast and nighttime, keeping an eye out for the right kind of branches to build her shelter. Set up the spine pole and side branches, filled it and covered it in a mountain of leaves until it was a respectable shelter that would keep her reasonably dry through any rain that might come.It was still very early in the morning, so she headed off to the marsh with her knife, her backpack, her bucket and fishing spear.Her fishing spear was pretty much just a walking stick now.But there was something nice about having a walking stick.At the marsh, she set down all her things, pulled off her clothes and had a proper bath in the cool water.The cold water really.Not yet heated up from the sun.Lexa was probably having a nice hot solar shower back at the village right about now …Was probably running her hands all over herself to get clean …Clarke let out a low growl at the thought.God … when she got back home … back to her warm bed and her smoking hot houman …She dunked herself in the cold water before she got too lost in those thoughts …Cleaned herself as well as she could, and then went to check her fish trapping basket.It was heavy again. She could hear flopping inside when she pulled it out of the water.When she poured it out onto the shore, she found four slithery eels about a big fat black fish about as long as her forearm that had long black wriggly whiskers.She decided that smaller eels weren’t so scary … only the big ones were scary.Checked them all for eggs and then cleaned them. Sliced off the meat into fillets and laid them on a stone. Used their guts and heads to bait the basket again and popped it back in the water.She filled her bucket with marsh water to boil. Popped the fillets into it. Rinsed herself off and got dressed.Found the skull of the big eel she’d caught the day before and cleaned it with her knife as best she could … cut out the yucky parts so it wouldn’t be so scary … and so she could take it back to the village to show the kids when she got home and taught them about eels.And … the eel skull was … kinda awesome looking … fearsome … with its big hinged jaw and all its sharp rows of pointy teeth … A pretty cool trophy of winning that trial for her houman …She popped the skull in her backpack, rinsed her hands, grabbed her bucket, her walking stick, and made her way back to camp.Started a fire to boil the water in the bucket, put the eel and fish fillets over the flames on her little skewers, thought about Lexa showering, thought about Lexa doing all kinds of things as she watched them cook.She was so lost in her Lexa thoughts that she didn’t even hear Penn and Tris and Otan approaching.Didn’t even notice them standing just a few feet away from her.“Clarke?” she heard Tris’ voice say.Clarke’s eyes snapped up from the flames, “Huh?”“You okay?” Penn asked, his forehead furrowed.“Yeah …,” Clarke smirked back, “Just … thinking. Have a seat.”Penn pulled off the bow he had slung on his back that Clarke didn’t even realize he was carrying and Tris dropped her backpack on the ground. The three of them took a seat around the fire.Clarke eyed Penn’s bow, “Is that what you and Lexa have been working on in the barn?”He nodded, “One of many attempts … this is the best one.”“You’re … not gonna hunt Lexa bears with it are you?” she looked at him.He smiled, “No. Those are protected.”She nodded.
Good.
“This one is mine …,” he looked back at her, “… but Lexa needs one …”Clarke’s eyebrows raised.“That is your test today … to make her a bow …,” he added.Clarke’s eyebrows raised even higher.She looked down at the bow.It was massive.Four feet long maybe?One solid piece of wood.A thick handhold in the middle.The thinner blades of wood above and below the thick handhold bowed in a perfectly symmetrical, elegant arch.Strung a line of very taught string …She had no fucking clue how to make that.“I will show you how …,” he said gently, “We can make it in an afternoon … and I have brought tools to help …,” he nodded at Tris’ backpack, “But please … eat your breakfast first …”Clarke looked at the bow again.Fuck.She was probably gonna fail this test.This had to be a trial from Penn.Did he not want her to be Lexa’s houman?Did he just like … secretly hate her?“Please … eat …,” he gestured to the skewers.“Okay …,” Clarke eyed the bow, the string, and then grabbed an eel skewer off the fire and held it out to him.He held up a hand, “No thank you … You need your strength.”“I’ll take it!” Otan chimed in, a big smile on his face as he reached for it.But Tris gently pulled his hand back before he could take it, “No. Clarke needs her strength … for her trials to be Lexa’s houman …,” she eyed Otan, “And we just ate … You most of all.”Otan frowned and balled up his hands into tight little fists in his lap.“It’s okay …,” Clarke said gently, “I have plenty.”“No …,” Otan grumbled.“You really do need your strength Clarke …,” Penn said gently, “This is only your fourth day … You should eat as much as you can to keep up your strength for what’s ahead ….”Clarke looked back at him silently.What was ahead?“Please eat Clarke …,” Tris added, a soft look on her face that only made Clarke worry all the more about what was coming next.“Let me explain the bow while you eat …,” Penn offered.Clarke acquiesced and started eating to prepare her body for whatever lay ahead, eyeing the bow.Penn put the bow across his lap and started pointing out the parts of it as she ate.He pointed out little notches in the ends where the string was tied, explained the need for a thick handhold in the middle to grip in order to aim the bow, explained how the tension of the bowstring made a straight piece of wood bend into an arch.The bow was beautiful honestly.Elegant.Looked really strong.Clarke was intimidated at the prospect of trying to make one herself.“There are some tricks to making it …,” Penn said, “But I assure you … I made every possible mistake before I figured out how to make one correctly. I wrote out each step in the process to do it right and I will show you.”Clarke nodded a little. Still intimidated.“Do we need bows?” Clarke asked, “Aren’t we supposed to use snares so we can release the pregnant rabbits?”“That was Lexa’s original plan when many more people were coming here …,” Penn answered, “… but with only the 10 of us … Lexa has calculated that the rabbit population may grow very quickly. And as you said … it seems that we are the only meat eaters here. It will be up to us to keep their numbers down … so they don’t eat all the plants here faster than they can replenish themselves. And snares don’t have as high of a success rate as bow hunting.”Clarke nodded slowly and took a bite of her eel … That … did make sense …He grinned at her, “And think how much Lexa would like it if she had a bow made by you … She loves a nice weapon.”Clarke grinned at that.Lexa would really like that.If she could make a good strong bow for her houman to hunt with … that would be … kinda awesome …“Ok …,” Clarke took another skewer of fish off the fire to eat, “How do we do this.”He started pulling tools out of Tris’ backpack.A big machete. Two odd looking knives he called ‘hatchet knives’.He explained that he’d make a bow with her, at the same time as she was making hers so she could see exactly how it was done.Explained that the first step would be cutting down a straight tree that was about as wide as her palm with the machete, then chopping the ends off the tree to create a four and a half foot long log out of the trunk. Then they’d split the log longways down the middle by standing it up on one end, putting the long blade of the machete across the top of the log, and then pounding the extra length of the machete blade down with a rock to split the log into 2 four and a half foot long halves. From there, they’d use the hatchet knives to shave down the wood that would bend to become the upper and lower blades of the bow, leaving a thicker section in the center to be the handhold.And that … didn’t sound impossible …When Clarke finished her meal, they got to work.Found a tree wide enough, one that Penn said would make for a strong bow. Clarke pointed out a patch of the sweet root plants nearby and Tris and Otan sat down and got to work digging up a few, cleaning off the dirt and munching on them.She cut down the tree with the machete and cut a four and a half foot long log out of the middle, split it in half with the machete and a stone, and then they each took a half of the log and got to work shaving down the upper and lower blades of their bows with the hatchet knives, leaving a nice thick handhold in the center for someone’s fist to grip while aiming it.It took work. All the shaving down of the wood into the long blades of the bow.But it was steady work. Only required patience and consistency and a little care to not shave unevenly or cut too deep into the wood in a way that would weaken it. And it was super helpful to see how Penn was shaving his bow right across from her.Four hours later, they had two tall bows, and Penn showed her how it arched when they rested the bottom point of it against the ground and pulled down on the top.It was satisfying to make something with her hands too. To turn a tree into an elegant bow in just a few hours.She could see why Penn liked doing this kind of stuff.“What about the string?” she asked.“That is the trickiest part …,” he answered, “I will trade you the string of my bow if you can make me a length of string. I will show you how.”She nodded and they went back to camp, dropped off their bows, took big drinks of cool water from the bucket and carried it with them as their little troop of four headed to the marsh. She left it on the shore and Penn led them over to the field of ferns at the end of it. He plucked a tall, straight, reedy plant out of the ground, broke off the base of it, and then split open the end of it with his fingers, pulled a long fibery strip out of the stem that was as long as that plant was tall, three feet long maybe.“These are what we will make string out of …,” he said quietly, showing it to the three of them, “We need to collect many more of these plants.”The four of them got to work collecting the plants, until they had two dozen of them and then they took a seat in a shady spot on the shore of the marsh with Otan and Tris.They broke off the ends and pulled out all the long thready fibers from each plant, and then Penn showed them how to rub the long strands between their hands so that all the shorter strands fell away, leaving only the longest thready strips between their palms. He showed Clarke how to split the handful of long strips into two little bunches in the palm of her hand, how to twist one set of the fibers together clockwise, then twist the other set clockwise, then twist one strand over the other counter-clockwise to make a tight braid of string. They sat on the shore together, twisting each strand, twisting the two strands around each other, over and over again in a little rhythm until the string started to take form, turned into something that Clarke definitely recognized as string, as the basis for the thick ropes in the barn in the village. They twisted and twisted the strands until it became automatic, until Clarke barely needed to look at her hands to do it. She could look up and watch Tris and Otan walking along the shoreline pointing at minnows in the water, wading into the marshy grasses and investigating what was hiding in them. Poking at the tall patches of reeds with sticks.Otan ran back to show them a fat green frog he’d caught in his hands, and they watched him place it gently back in the water.It was nice out there.Peaceful.Just watching the kids play.Seeing the little splashes where fish nipped at bugs on the surface of the water now and then.Watching the birds land at the water’s edge and sip from the marsh, flit their feathers in the water to clean themselves.Before long, Penn was showing her how to add more length to her string. How to add the next set of long thready strands to the loose ends of first set in her palm so they could be twisted in along with the rest to lengthen the string.“This is awesome …,” she grinned at him, “I never thought about where string comes from … rope. Didn’t know you could just make it out of plants like this.”He nodded, “I didn’t know either. Hed- … Lexa showed me. The flame showed her. She says she must have looked at the string of one of her hunting bows back in Polis and wondered about it … and then the flame showed her everything about string. How it’s made. What kinds of plants it can be made out of. She still remembers.”Clarke nodded, realizing that being able to have all that knowledge the flame provided would probably be pretty appealing to someone like Penn, who loved to make things.Penn smiled, “I learn a lot from my mistakes though. That’s how I come up with new ideas. Or … ideas for how to make things better. Knowing how to make something perfectly is … good … but …”“Kinda boring?” Clarke smiled back at him.He grinned, “Yes. It’s fun to try something and not know whether it will work. Makes it more … satisfying when it does work.”He held up the length of string he had made, tugged it tight between his fists a few times and smiled, “I was not entirely certain that we could make string from this plant … It looked about right. But now we know it works.”She grinned back at him.After a little while, they had each made a very long strand of string, maybe eight feet of string each.He asked for Clarke’s string and she handed it over. He tugged at it in several places to test its strength and she was pleased to see how strong it was, how hard he could tug at it and that it didn’t snap.“You have done very well today …,” he smiled at her, “I would happily trade you my bow string for this.”“Won’t this work for the bow?” she asked.He hummed, “It’s better if the string has had longer to dry out. Bow string needs to be very strong to shoot an arrow. Mine has been dried out for a while. Yours will be my new bowstring when it has had more time to dry.”She nodded, “Thank you for teaching me all this. It was fun. And … I learned a lot. You’re a really great teacher.”“You too,” he smiled back, “This has taken quite some time … If you need some help finding food for dinner ...”She got up and helped him up too, “Let’s see if I’ve trapped anything. I’ve caught something every time so far.”She waded out to get her fish trapping basket while Penn, Tris, and Otan waited by the shore.She could feel that it was heavy. Could hear flopping inside.Poured a huge black whiskery fish out onto the shore along with a few more eels and Otan and Tris squealed over them as she checked them for eggs.She looked up at Penn, “Will you stay for dinner? This is way more than I can eat. I’ll have to throw some of them back if you don’t.”Otan shot Penn a desperate look.“Yes …,” Penn smiled at Otan, “We would be happy to join you. Thank you.”Penn helped her clean the fish while Tris and Otan watched, seeing how to do it, watched how she loaded up her trap with bait from the innards to catch breakfast for the next morningWhen she’d set out the trap again and filled the bucket, dropped the fillets in it and washed off her hands, they walked back to her little camp.Penn made the fire and boiled the bucket of water while Clarke showed the little ones the skull of the huge eel she’d caught the day before, which they seemed totally fascinated by. They took turns opening and closing its huge jaw, ran their fingers carefully along the sides of its rows pointy teeth.They feasted on eel and the black fish around the campfire that night. Penn handed her his bowstring and showed her how to put it on Lexa’s bow, how to tie the knots and affix the string into the little notches they’d cut into each end. The tension from the tight string made the wood arch beautifully in the firelight.Clarke was so fucking proud of it.It looked so strong. Elegant. A perfect gift for Lexa.“She will love it,” Tris grinned and took a bite of fish.“Lexa would be very lucky to have someone so skilled as her houman,” Penn  smiled at Clarke, “You gave passed today’s trial … obviously.”“I aprooooove …,” Otan howled through a mouthful of eel.“Me too,” Tris grinned at her, “Obviously.”Clarke grinned at her for picking up a new word from Penn, “Did you test me Tris?”“Mmm … my test is coming …,” Tris answered, “Callie and I came up with it together. But I think you’re gonna do okay.”Clarke smiled at the idea of them thinking up a test for her together.Honestly, the tests had been a lot of fun so far. Their test of her knowledge of the map, her camping and fishing and cooking skills, her bow and string making skills.It had been a lot of work. It really had been a test of strength. Of endurance. Four long days of roughing it. The hike over to this side of the valley. Setting up a camp. The fires. Foraging plants. Making the basket trap and keeping it baited. Keeping busy all the time to get everything done to keep her little camp running and Lexa’s bowl full at the end of each day.But she loved that the kids had planned all this for her. That she got to spend time with them around her campfire.They were already a family even if she wasn’t officially Lexa’s houman yet. She had already been making them breakfasts in the village each morning and teaching them in school for months.But sitting around the campfire with them … she could feel things starting to shift between them … The way they were each sharing little parts of themselves with her … opening up to her in this new way that felt … very personal … Were showing their affection for her plainly now …And she could feel it sinking in more and more … becoming more real … the knowledge that she had 8 kids …Which was 7 or 8 kids more than she had ever imagined she’d have when she’d been on the Ark.They weren’t her kids in the technical sense … biologically … They weren’t Lexa’s kids biologically either. But she saw pieces of Lexa in each of them. And they were all such great kids. Great people. She was proud to be in their family.And she was sad to see her three kids leave her little fire.Otan and Tris each gave her a hug before they left. Even Penn gave her a hug.She thanked him again for teaching her to make the bow and the three of them headed off, with Tris carrying Lexa’s bowl and Penn carrying his bow in one hand and a lit stick from her campfire in the other to light their way back to wherever their camp was.She still hadn’t seen the natblidas’ base camp.But she suspected that that was by design.After a little ways Penn blew out his torch and then she had no idea which direction they were walking in.She tossed some more big logs onto her fire and crawled into her now more substantial shelter of branches and the mountain of leaves heaped on top of it.It was so much warmer inside than the pile  of only leaves that she’d been sleeping in for days. And in seconds she was drifting off into a warm contented sleep. —- Day 5 —- The next morning, Clarke actually slept relatively late. Maybe till 8.The warmth of her new shelter had kept her dozing … instead of the chilly air waking her up at dawn as it had when she’d been sleeping in just the pile of leaves.She yawned and stretched out her muscles. Grinned at the sight of Lexa’s bow, and drank from the bucket of clean water.Eyed the little note in Lexa’s bowl that was waiting for her.It said:
You have been challenged. Meet at the marsh at midday.
She wasn’t sure what that meant exactly.Hadn’t every task she’d been given been a challenge?She went ahead and did her morning chore of gathering firewood.Went to the marsh to collect her catch of fish from the fish trapping basket and got more water to boil. Re-baited the trap and dropped it back in the water. Grabbed some more fern fronds to go in the fish soup she was gonna make for breakfast. Picked a heap more of those oniony bulbs to snack on on her way back to camp.By late morning, she was feeling full and happy from her oniony frond and fish soup meal. Was happy to just run her hands over the beautiful bow she’d made Lexa and test out the string. Was happy to just watch a little family of squirrels poking their heads out of a hole in one of the trees near her campsite. Was perfectly content just staring off into space … musing about Lexa … and what she was gonna do to her houman when she got home …God … she could not wait to get her hands on Lexa …When the sun was getting to its highest point in the sky, she wandered back to the marsh.Callie was there waiting for her at the shore and said, “Hei Clarke,” with a big smile and wrapped her waist in a tight hug.
Ugh.
She loved these kids.Loved that they were giving her hugs now.Clarke leaned down and hugged her back, leaned back a little and smiled, “Do you have a test for me Callie?”Callie shook her head, “Not me. Not today. You’ve been challenged.”And before Clarke could ask what that meant, Callie grabbed Clarke’s hand and tugged her to the other end of the marsh, the side she hadn’t explored yet.And when they rounded a big patch of tall marshy reeds, Clarke saw Reva decked out in her full warrior gear. All leather. Black warpaint around her eyes.
Oh fuck.
And Reva was standing next to what appeared to be a giant mud pit.“You have been challenged Clarke …,” Reva said gravely, “By me.”Clarke chewed her lip a little, “I don’t want to fight you … If that’s what this is …”Reva raised an eyebrow, “You don’t think Lexa is worthy of a houman who can defend her?”“No I …,” Clarke started, but she wasn’t sure what to say next.Of course Lexa was worthy of that.But she didn’t want to fight one of Lexa’s kids.“Lexa is a warrior …,” Reva tilted up her chin, “Any decent match would fight for her as she would fight for them. Would you not fight for your houman?”Clarke’s jaw clenched at the dig, “Of course I would … But I don’t want to hurt you.”Reva laughed, “What makes you think you can?” Then she gestured at the mud pit, “When you fail, your fall will be soft at least ...”Clarke pursed her lips.Clearly Reva was just trying to bait her into fighting. Was just trying to get under her skin …But …Lexa was a warrior … through and through …The idea of Lexa having a houman that wouldn’t or … couldn’t fight for her did seem … kinda absurd …Reva took a step forward, “I am a trained warrior. Trained to fight since I could stand. You will not hurt me. We will use no weapons. I will show you the basics … since you are so weak and have no training … and then you can try to pin me. If you can pin me three times, you will have my approval to be Lexa’s houman.”Clarke chewed at her lip again, eyeing Reva.How hard would it be to pin her three times without hurting her?The mud did look squishy and soft …And they were about the same height.Reva was only 14 … but … she looked strong … stockier than Lexa …Was a very muscly 14 year old honestly … with probably 12 of those years spent training to become a fighter …In stark contrast to Clarke’s zero years spent training to be a fighter …“Do you accept my challenge coward?” Reva arched an eyebrow at her, her brown eyes glinting against her mask of black warpaint, and then sneered, “Or are you too weak … Unworthy of even doing Lexa’s laundry … Unworthy of even serving Lexa that disgusting gruel she pretends to like … Much less being her houman …”Okay ouch.Her breakfast porridge was good.Lexa liked her breakfast porridge … all the kids did … right?Or … had they all just been … being polite …It tasted good to her … or … maybe not good … a little bland … But … it was … fine.Perfectly adequate.“Maybe we could arm wrestle?” Clarke offered.Reva barked out a laugh.“Stop being such a coward Clarke …”Clarke looked over at Callie, who was seated cross-legged off to the side of the mud pit with her little forehead furrowed.“I’m six and I’m not afraid to fight her,” Callie looked back at her.Reva stepped right in front of Clarke, nose to nose with her and growled out, “I cannot even fathom what she sees in you ... Someone who cannot fight … Someone who cannot even walk through the woods without scaring away all the animals … Someone from the weakest and most honor-less of all the 13 clans … Cowards who use guns … Someone who has not even taught their child to hunt properly … Someone so unworthy of the blood …”Clarke’s eyebrows raised at that.Reva leaned back a little, her eyes dusting over Clarke’s face and then said under her breath, too quiet for Callie to hear, “I would rather slit Lexa’s throat than see her endure the shame of being bonded to a coward …”And then she kicked Clarke’s feet out from under her and shoved her hard into the mud.The mud pit was soft at least.Clarke’s whole body sank deep into the muck.And … she got quite a bit of mud in her mouth … spit it out as she pushed herself up with her mud covered arms.“Disappointing,” Callie frowned at her from beside the mud pit.Reva kicked a boot full of mud at Clarke that sprayed across her face, “When I tell the other natblidas of your cowardice … not a single one of them will support this match. Not even Madi.”Clarke wiped a hand across her face to push the dripping mud away from her eyes and sat up … feeling the cold muck soaking through her pants and shirt … the only clothes she had to wear for the next few days.Reva stepped over to where Clarke was sitting and crouched down in front of her, balancing on the balls of her feet in the mud, looked at Clarke’s still mud covered face and sighed, “Perhaps there is still time to talk Lexa out of this … Explain to her that you are not fit for something as sacred as bonding … that you are only suitable for warming a bed …,” Reva smirked at her, “Maybe not even that … Perhaps she pretends to like that too? Perhaps you are the bland porridge of bed warmers … who she only endures so that the rest of us can live in the valley ... You must have considered it …”Um no, Clarke had not considered that.Clarke grumbled and pushed herself up out of the muck and onto her feet … chunks of mud dropping off her clothes. Wiped off her mud-covered hands on her mud-covered pants and ran her dripping hand through her mud-covered hair to push it away from her eyes.“Okay …,” Clarke looked back at her, “Show me.”Reva smirked, “Wrestling like this requires the least skill … since you have none … You may even get lucky and pin me once … so you do not embarrass yourself entirely …”“Just show me how to do it,” Clarke grumbled.Reva nodded once, “For a pin to count … both shoulders must be pressed down deep into the mud … hard enough that your opponent cannot get free until you let them up …,” and then she kicked Clarke’s feet out from under her again and was on top of her in a flash, her hands pressing Clarke’s shoulders deep into the mud … So deep that Clarke could feel the muck sliding over her neck.“Pin!” Callie shouted from the edge.Clarke sighed to herself.Reva was clearly awesome at this.She wriggled under the hard pressure of Reva’s hands pinning her shoulders down but she couldn’t squirm free.“Do you understand?” Reva asked lightly, like Clarke was an idiot.Clarke’s eyes narrowed at her, “How many times can you pin me before I lose?”Reva shook her head a little, “My pins do not count. Only yours. When you fail to pin me three times and quit, it will only be your own failure, not my victory.”Clarke squirmed a little under the hands pinning her shoulders again, but still couldn’t get free.“Alright …,” Clarke grumbled, “Let me up.”Reva sprang to her feet and Clarke slowly crawled up onto her hands and knees, pushed herself up onto her feet.The mud was very soft at least. She couldn’t feel the beginnings of any bruises … only her pride was wounded.Reva gestured at the muck, “Please … walk through it … Familiarize yourself with the muck … your new home.”Clarke’s eyes narrowed at her and she pulled a foot out of the deep muck to take a step. It made a sucking sound around her foot and nearly pulled off her hiking boot.She reached down and yanked her boot and foot up out of the muck, slid off her shoe and tossed it over to the edge of the pit so it didn’t end up ruined and full of mud. She pulled off her other hiking boot and tossed it away too. Then she stepped barefoot around the pit through the muck. It was slippery as fuck. Some parts sucked on her feet when she pulled them up to take a step. In other parts, when she put her foot down the muck slid out from under her foot and she nearly lost her balance entirely.She walked around the pit a few times, getting a sense of where the muck was more firm and sticky, where it was looser and more slippery.She looked up at Reva, “Ok … what else?”Reva smirked back at her, “This lesson will be showing, not telling.”Reva chucked off her boots too … in what Clarke guessed was a gesture toward having a fair fight … even though Clarke was already pretty certain that this match was going to be wildly lopsided in Reva’s favor.Clarke had been in several hand to hand fights since she’d come to the ground … when she’d lost her gun … when she’d been ambushed … kidnapped … when her life had been on the line …And she’d pretty much had her ass handed to her every time. Grounders were so good at hand to hand combat … amazing at it really … but she had eventually won out against a few of her opponents … after they’d beaten her up a few times …When Anya had taken her hostage, she’d kicked Clarke’s ass a few times when they’d fought … But in their last fight, Clarke had beaten her … and Anya was a very skilled warrior. Had been Lexa’s mentor. And sure, maybe she’d only been able to defeat Anya because the Mountain Men had drained Anya of a lot of her blood before their fight … and because Anya had been worn out from kicking her ass so thoroughly so many times … and … because Clarke had stuck her with a sleeping dart … but maybe … maybe endurance was Clarke’s advantage … Maybe Reva would get tired after pinning her down in the mud so many times … as Clarke was pretty certain Reva was just about to do …And she was right.Reva pinned her a dozen times right after their match started. Pinned her easily. Made it look entirely effortless. She wasn’t even breathing hard like Clarke was.It happened so fast each time that Clarke barely registered that it was happening.One second she was on her feet, facing Reva, hunched forward a little to keep her balance as she and Reva circled each other in the muck, and the next second, she felt Reva’s foot lightly hook behind her knee and the next thing she knew, she was on her back in the muck and Reva was on top of her, pinning her shoulders down.Reva had said she was going to show Clarke how to do this instead of telling her … But all Clarke had been learning so far was that she sucked at this and that Reva was some kind of wrestling prodigy. Reva didn’t even have to use her hands to get her on the ground. Just hooked her foot behind Clarke’s knee and lifted and Clarke’s whole leg flew out from under her.Callie had even stopped calling out, “Pin!” each time Reva pinned her.Which Clarke kinda appreciated honestly.Even though Reva’s pins didn’t count, hearing them called out over and over again was … kinda demoralizing.Reva easily hooked Clarke’s leg out from under her a dozen more times … didn’t even bother pinning her.And when Clarke crawled up out of the muck onto her feet after the last time, as she was still catching her breath, she resolved to not let it happen again … or at least … not so easily …Focused on just keeping keeping her balance … on trying to lock her knee the next time she felt Reva’s foot hook behind it … Just focus on not falling over …And then she remembered what Madi had said when they’d been hanging up laundry together before the trials had started …How Madi had said that if she didn’t want to fall over, she’d walk sideways … wouldn’t let her feet cross in front of each other …And whoops … Clarke was on her back in the mud again.But she crawled up onto her feet a little faster this time.Stepped sideways this time as she and Reva circled around each other in the pit, careful not to let her feet cross.“Did you learn something bland porridge?” Reva grinned at her.Clarke smirked back at her.“Next lesson …,” Reva smiled, and then she hunched and flew forward like a puma, her shoulder landing just below Clarke’s ribs, sending Clarke flying backwards and landing in the muck with a loud sucking sploosh sound.Clarke panted on her back as Reva pressed her shoulders down deep into the mud with her hands, and then Reva stood up before it could be called as a pin.But when Clarke looked up at her, Reva was breathing heavier.Sure … she’d gotten her pin, but she’d had to work for it this time. Didn’t manage to do it with just a flick of her foot.Clarke got up, started circling with her again, walking sideways. And she noticed that now that Reva couldn’t knock her off balance so easily, and she could kinda tell when Reva’s attacks were coming by watching her shoulders. She started emulating Reva’s posture, her movements, even managed to dodge a few of Reva’s lunges.She got pinned plenty more times, countless times, but Reva was still having to work for it each time. Clarke could start using what she hoped was her endurance advantage now.And Clarke remembered the other thing Madi had said … about getting her power from her back leg.Reva flew forward again, but Clarke managed to catch her this time, grappling with her head to head as she tried to pull Clarke off balance.The whole nature of their fight had shifted. It was arms and shoulders now.It took another hour for Clarke to learn to defend herself well enough that she could go on the attack. She started getting Reva a little off balance sometimes as they grappled head to head, shoulder to shoulder, their feet sliding through the muck.Started managing to make Reva slip and fall a few times. She couldn’t get on the ground quite fast enough to pin her yet. Reva was so fast at rolling away and popping back up onto her feet. But she was getting tired too … slower. Less steady.In another hour, they looked like two mud monsters circling each other in the pit. They were both breathing heavy. Every inch of them coated in a thick layer of muck.It was an all out brawl.A lot more of their fighting now was on the ground, in the muck, rolling over and over each other, trying to slip out of each other’s holds.And then Clarke finally managed to pin her. Pushed Reva’s shoulders deep down in the muck.“Pin!” Callie shouted.And Reva grinned up at her. Her face almost entirely covered in mud except for her eyes.Clarke got to her feet, chest heaving, and reached out a hand to pull Reva up too.Reva tossed a handful of muck at Clarke’s shirt and smiled, “I do not need your help bland porridge.”And then popped up onto her feet.Clarke chuckled.A half hour later, Clarke got her second pin. They were both moving a lot more slowly through the muck now. But Clarke managed to get a leg behind Reva’s knee and shove her off balance with her shoulder. Managed to fall down on top of her in a heap just before Reva could roll away, and basically just crushed Reva’s with her whole body into the mud by laying on top of her so she couldn’t squirm away.“Pin?” Callie called out.Clarke slid her hands under herself, over Reva’s shoulders and leaned back.“Yes …,” Reva panted, “It’s a pin. Inelegant but …”Clarke smirked and got to her feet, reached down a hand, and this time, Reva took it.Reva managed to pin Clarke four more times. And then started taunting her.“Are you tired bland porridge?” Reva panted out as they circled each other, “Maybe you should go home and rest … I’m sure there’s room for you in the chicken coop ...”Clarke chuckled and then Reva lunged forward and pinned Clarke in the mud. Pinned her shoulders deep in the muck and smirked down at her, “There is no shame in quitting now. You have proven yourself worthy of failing to earn Lexa at least. That is a great achievement for you.”Clarke hooked her leg around Reva’s, grabbed her with both arms and rolled them over to try and pin her.But Reva somehow managed to roll right back out of it.They each slowly got to their feet, breathing heavily.“One more Clarke …,” Callie called out from the sidelines.Clarke nodded, eyeing Reva, and then crouched low, started circling around her again.Reva hunched forward, her eyes locked with Clarke’s as they stepped sideways around the pit.“You’re gonna make the one of the desserts for our bonding ceremony …,” Clarke panted at her, “… and it better be good.”Reva smirked, “It couldn’t be worse than your porridge.”Clarke lunged for her but only caught Reva’s ankle and a mouthful of mud.“Almost got me that time …,” Reva smirked down at her.Clarke spit out the mud and hauled herself back up onto her feet slowly, and then crouched forward in her fighting stance. Started circling her again.“We have Lexa tied up at the house …,” Reva taunted, “… to keep her from coming here …”Clarke’s eyebrows raised.That … couldn’t be true …Could it?The last time she’d seen Lexa was when the kids had been abducting her out of their bed … and … Lexa did have a hand pressed over her mouth in that split second when Clarke had sleepily opened her eye and seen her, just before someone had pulled that sack over her head.And … Lexa hadn’t lifted a finger to stop it …Maybe Lexa wasn’t able to lift a finger to stop it? ‘Cause her hands were literally tied?“What would you do to get her back?” Reva panted, “If someone took Lexa …”And for just a second, Clarke forgot that the mud monster in front of her was Reva. Forgot how exhausted she was. Thought only of Lexa being held captive. Her adrenaline surged.She lunged forward and missed, but immediately lunged again and Reva stepped quickly out of the way and around her on suddenly fast feet. Clarke spun around and launched herself forward again, with all the power in her back leg driving her forward, her shoulder landing squarely in Reva’s stomach and sent her flying back into the muck with a thick wet sploosh.Clarke sat on top of her, cheat heaving, her hands landing hard on Reva’s shoulders and pinning them down deep in the muck.“Pin!” Callie shouted, “3 Pins!”Clarke shook her head a little, still panting and looked down at Reva, “You … okay?”“Yes …,” Reva croaked, “But if you would … get off …”Clarke slid off her and fell over into the muck, panting heavily up the afternoon sky. A wave of exhaustion flooding through her.They just laid there … panting side by side in the mud for a long time, and then Clarke panted out again, “You okay?”Reva rolled onto her side and smiled at her, mud dripping off her face, “I am well. Good job Clarke. You were a worthy opponent. You have my approval.”Clarke grinned.Callie handed each of them each a canteen to drink from.They helped Clarke up onto her feet and Reva said, “We should get you cleaned up and back to camp while you can still walk.”Clarke nodded a little and they walked her to the marsh so she and Reva could scrub off all the mud. And then Clarke swam through the water to get her fish trapping basket, felt it heavy and full of flopping fish, dragged it back to the shore, where Callie was waiting with a backpack.“We have clean clothes for you …,” Callie smiled and pulled a change of clothes from the backpack, along with Clarke’s muddy hiking boots she’d tossed off at the pit.Clarke nodded. It was thoughtful of them to bring her clothes.“Please … change …,” Reva said gently, “I will clean your fish for you.”Clarke was too tired to argue.She got changed while they cleaned the fish and re-baited the fish trapping basket. Reva walked it back out into the water and placed it in the spot where it had been in before, got changed in another set of clothes from Callie’s backpack and pulled on her muddy boots.They walked her back to camp, Clarke’s arm over Reva’s shoulder.They got to work on starting Clarke’s fire. Put her fish on the skewers. Handed her a canteen.“Is this okay?” Clarke asked, “You doing all this stuff? I can do it.”Reva shook her head, “You have done enough today. And you have already caught Lexa’s dinner. Just rest …”Clarke closed her eyes. She was wiped out. Felt a little woozy even sitting down now that the fight was over, now that her adrenaline was all gone and she could feel how bone tired she was.She looked at Reva, “How are you not exhausted?”Reva chuckled, “Oh … I am quite tired. But I train all the time. I am used to this feeling. And I had the easier half of our fight. My tricks make it easier … and … learning is harder than using techniques you already know.”Clarke nodded, sipped at her canteen, “I’m no expert, but you seem like an awesome fighter.”Reva grinned, “I have learned well. Callie too.”Callie smiled at the compliment, then said, “I’m not as good at trash talk.”Clarke smirked at Reva, “You are good at trash talk.”Reva chuckled, “I assumed it would take some goading to get you to fight me.”Clarke nodded, “I’m not really a fighter by nature. Only when the situation requires it.”Reva hummed, “You could be though. It’s just a skill like any other. No one is really born a fighter. Some have better qualities for it by nature … that is true. But those qualities must be turned into something by a good teacha, by learning and practicing. Someone with a good teacha, who has learned and practiced will defeat an opponent with only natural abilities far more often than not.”Clarke nodded at that.Callie picked up Lexa’s bow, admiring it, running her hands across the wood, “This is excellent Clarke.”Clarke grinned, “Thanks. I hope she likes it.”“You will be returning to her a proven warrior …,” Reva grinned back at her, “With a weapon. A proper bonding gift. With proven skills to provide for a houman. Quite an achievement … especially for someone from space.”Clarke closed her eyes and imagined that, imagined herself returning to their house in the village, returning to Lexa with the strong bow she’d made for her houman slung over her back, an eel skull in her hand, her skin a few shades tanner and maybe a little sunburned from so many days of surviving outdoors … Battle tested. Strong from fighting. From all her efforts … From so many days of providing for her houman.And the thought, the mental image, was extremely pleasing.It would even be kinda cool if she showed up covered in mud.She did not belong in the sterile confines of a spaceship.No.She belonged here.In the woods.In the muck even.Catching fish.Gathering edible plants in the sunshine.Swimming in the marsh.Confident and competent enough in her abilities that she could take the time to just sit and watch Lexa bears on the shore, that she could take the time to watch her little ones investigating the marsh, watch the birds cleaning their feathers and the fish jump in the marsh … and just … admire them … as she wove plant fibers into strong string with her hands, transforming them with her effort. Could let fish with eggs go because she knew she could catch more.And she realized then that she was gonna miss this place.The marsh.Her little shelter.The peace of it.The rhythm of life outdoors.The sounds of the water and birds.Even the quiet.Even the eels she would miss.And she realized then that … the whole time she’d been there, out on her own for days and days, she’d never really felt alone.And that was because … she wasn’t alone.Not really.She’d been with Nature.Not in it.With it.Having a conversation.Every task she’d performed was a question …Tapping the grapevine branches was her asking Nature if she could have something to drink.Putting her basket trap in the marsh was her asking if she could have something to eat.Looking for firewood was her asking Nature to keep her warm.Every bitter leaf she’d taste tested and had to spit out was Nature saying, “No. That is not for you.”Everything she’d done, all these days in the woods was just her asking for Nature’s approval.Was her asking Nature, ‘Like this?’ and ‘Is this ok?’Every failure and every success had been an answer.And everything she’d been given was a gift.A gift she was grateful for.She was looking forward to going home of course. To her houman. To her brood of kids. To the comforts.But comfort wasn’t everything.And she would miss being with Nature like this.Hearing Nature’s voice in the quiet. In the calls of the birds. Asking the questions and receiving the answers. Seeing Nature’s ingenuity … the perfection of all of her plants, of all her wild creatures, which Clarke was proud to be one of, even with all her human imperfections.But she felt closer to being one of Nature’s perfect creatures now. Felt Nature not only with her but inside her too. Could feel Nature’s quiet in her bones after so many days outdoors. Could feel Nature’s presence curled up in her chest like one of Nature’s furry little creatures sleeping.And she realized then that that was the difference between her and everyone else in her household.Their quiet ways.The way they walked so silently in the woods.They were listening, feeling Nature inside them, their connection to this place.That was why, when Madi has lost her people in the village to the radiation, she had gone to live in the woods.Clarke had never fully understood why Madi had done that.Why she had given up shelter and beds and blankets to live in the forest.As soon as Clarke had found the village, she’d gone straight indoors.But Madi’s choice made sense to her now.It wasn’t just about Madi wanting distance from her grief, from the dead.After losing her parents, her family, her friends, Madi didn’t want to be alone. And she hadn’t been alone. She’d left to go be with Nature. With her other family. With the plants and creatures. To feel that warm furry feeling in her chest. To be in conversation with Nature. To ask the questions and receive the answers. Would Nature feed her? Keep her warm with firewood? Would Nature make a place for her among her wild creatures? Madi had given herself over to Nature’s will … just like every other creature … to be a part of Nature’s infinite and perfect cycle of life and death and rebirth in whatever way Nature saw fit.Reva placed a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Are you okay Clarke?”Clarke didn’t even realize she was crying.“Yeah …,” she sniffled, “I just … love this place … being here …”Reva and Callie gave her a soft look.“You feel it …,” Callie said quietly, “The …”Then Callie looked at Reva, “What’s the word? In Gonasleng? Keryonhoum?”Reva looked at Clarke, “The spirit of this place … It calls to you … You feel it ...”Reva tapped her hand over her heart.Clarke nodded and sniffled again.“When you feel the keryon … you’re … not lost anymore … You’re home,” Reva added gently, “You understand?”Clarke nodded and wiped the tears off her cheeks.And then Reva and Callie went back to silently tending to the fire and the fish.But for Clarke, it felt like her worldview had just shifted in some fundamental way. Like the axis of her reality had shifted.And she could see it now, as she watched Reva and Callie silently drink their water and hand her fish to eat and look out at the trees. She could see them listening. Feeling their connection to the valley.And she sat with them in the silence, eating her fish. Silently handed each of them skewers of fish too.Felt her own stillness connect to theirs. Felt them all on the exact same page.They were her children.But also they weren’t.They were Nature’s children.All of them.Her too.And they belonged to this place.To the valley.They sat around the campfire in silence until it got dark.Watching the red-yellow flames rolling and flickering hypnotically. Feeling the warmth.Appreciating Nature’s gift of dried logs and combustion and heat.After what must have been almost two hours of total silence, Reva looked at her and said, “We will not take Lexa’s bowl tonight. I am telling you tomorrow’s task now …”And then she said coordinates from Clarke’s map of the valley.Clarke blinked at her, “But that’s … home.”Callie’s forehead furrowed at her in the firelight.“I mean … not home exactly …,” Clarke quickly corrected herself, “It’s … the other side of the lake.”Callie smiled.“Yes …,” Reva nodded, “Tomorrow night you will camp there. Alone. No one will join you at your fire. And you must stay there overnight, on the opposite side of the lake.”Oof … that was gonna be tough … being so close to the village, just a short walk away, but not allowed to go there.Clarke nodded.She couldn’t fail now.She was way too deep into her trials to fail.Way too close to having Lexa as her houman.Reva and Callie each gave her a hug, and then silently disappeared into the darkness.Clarke tossed a few more logs onto the fire and then burrowed into the leaves inside her shelter.Her muscles aching pretty badly from the wrestling match.But she didn’t feel it for long.In less than a minute she was fast asleep. —— Day 6 —— The next morning, Clarke crawled out of her shelter.Still quite sore from the wrestling match the day before.But her aching muscles made her feel strong too. Were a reminder of her victory, of her determination. The pain would pass. But that victory for her houman would be hers forever.Reva had not taken it easy on her. Far from it. But Clarke wouldn’t have had it any other way.At least … that’s how she felt about it now … now that it was over and she had won …She collected her firewood, as she had each morning. But felt a little sentimental about doing it for the last time.It was a good thing that she was doing though. Clearing away some of the underbrush to lower the risk of fires in this part of the valley. Clearing away dead branches so that more plants could grow and thrive on the forest floor. So more of those delicious oniony bulbs could grow.She went down to the lake with her bucket to get some water and her breakfast catch.She’d caught more eel in her basket trap overnight, which she was thrilled about.She was pretty sure she could eat eel forever.It was definitely her favorite food.She’d caught more eel than she needed though, and took more than half of them back into the water in her basket and said “May we meet again …” to them with a grin on her face as she watched them wriggle away in the water to go do eel things and live their eel lives in the marsh that they were so perfectly suited for.She cleaned the other eels on the bank, rinsed her hands and then just sat on the shore in the early morning light, listening to the frogs, watching the birds arch past in the soft blue sky overhead. Watching the long marsh grasses sway in the breeze. It would have been cool if she’d seen some Lexa bears. But she didn’t. And honestly, she was just happy to know that they existed in the valley at all.And that was how Nature worked. Sometimes, if you were quiet, she might show you one on her beautiful creatures. But only if she felt like it. As like … a treat …Clarke just sat silently watching for a long while. Feeling the breeze. The sun on her face. Smelling the muddy smell of the marsh. Listening to the rustling of the long reeds in the breeze. Said a silent thank you to that place. To Nature.She filled her bucket with water, dropped the strips of eel meat into it, put the eel guts and heads into her basket trap, washed off her hands, and then carried her basket trap and bucket back to her campsite.She figured she’d need the basket trap and the bait inside it to trap fish from the lake for dinner when she got to her destination that day. Maybe she could spear fish with her all but forgotten fishing spear … but she wasn’t sure if she still had the skill to spearfish after so many months of using Lexa’s basket traps.She could have gotten by with just breakfast that day of course. But she wanted to keep up her strength. ‘Cause her muscles were sore and needed it, and because by her calculation, her 7 day trial would be over tomorrow … which meant that she would be seeing Lexa soon … which meant that she would be needing her strength soon …She decided to take her spear home with her anyway though. ‘Cause it looked kinda awesome with its four sharp points. And so she could try it out and see if the wooden points she’d carved actually worked, or if only the metal points of Madi’s spears worked in their lake. She’d pose the question to Nature: Do wooden spear points work for spearing lake fish? And then try it out and see what Nature said about it.When she got back to camp she built a fire, set up her eel skewers to get them cooking. Boiled her water.She noticed that Reva and Callie had left her a canteen for her trek back to the lake, which she was grateful for and filled up with clean water from her bucket.They’d taken her muddy clothes too, which was also considerate of them … or maybe Reva just hadn’t wanted Lexa to see Clarke show up at camp with every inch of her clothes stained with mud and figure out that they’d been wrestling.Maybe Reva didn’t want to get in trouble with Lexa over that.But Clarke could just imagine Reva smirking as she did whatever chores, whatever punishment Lexa gave her for it … smirking at the memory of just how thoroughly she’d whooped Clarke’s ass, at how many dozens and dozens of times she’d pinned Clarke, at just how much mud Clarke had probably swallowed from spending so much time in the muck.It was kinda fun to see that other side of Reva. Reva the warrior. Clarke knew her as an attentive student in their little school. Hard working and smart. Polite. Diligent in doing her chores and homework. Clever in figuring out stuff to do with corn.But now she knew that underneath all that, Reva was a badass. Could set aside all that politeness and be a mean teenager and trash talk with the best of them.Clarke couldn’t really imagine any of the other natblidas doing that. They were all so polite. But then again … she’d thought of Reva as quite polite too.Maybe when the natblidas went out to train with Lexa they trash talked while they fought one another …Madi would probably love that …Maybe she should finally go and watch them train sometime …She’d kinda left that to Lexa … let it be her thing with the kids … and maybe it still should be Lexa’s time alone with them … but Clarke was more curious about it now …She finished up her breakfast eel and put out her campfire.Fished her blanket out of the leaves in her little shelter and put it in her backpack with the big eel skull inside. Took stock of what else she had to carry back to the lake.The metal bucket.The canteen.Her fish trapping basket.Her spear.Her knife.The little kerchief Xander had left with her.Lexa’s bow.The two metal bowls.Her jacket.The shoelace from her hiking boot she’d used for her fire-making bow.It wasn’t much at all really.She laced the shoestring back into her hiking boot, pulled on her jacket, put her knife in her pocket, put her bowls and the canteen and the kerchief in the backpack, slid the backpack onto her shoulders and slid the spear through the shoulder straps that hung low behind her back. Slung the bow over her back too and carried her fish basket under one arm, the bucket in her hand.She walked by a huge patch of those plants with the oniony bulbs and decided to put some dirt in her bucket and bring a half dozen of the little plants back with her. Maybe they could be transplanted in the garden. If they did ok there, maybe they could come back to the marsh and bring home some more to transplant.And there were so many of them, she dug up a few dozen of the bulbs and put them into the bucket too, among the leafy transplants, so she could bring those home to flavor her family’s upcoming dinners.When she passed a big field of those plants with the big dark green leaves and the sweet roots, she popped several of the roots into her backpack too, to be dessert for the family’s next meal.The thought of sharing her discoveries with her family when she got home made her heart flutter.And even with her muscles still achy, being on the move felt good.Being out in the sunshine.Seeing her surroundings change from a forest of trees with big light green leaves and smooth gray bark to big open fields of swaying grasses.She took her time. Enjoying the views. The peace. The breezes. Feeling the warm furry feeling in her chest.It took a few hours to walk across the valley … to get to the soft mulchy ground and the tall reddish trees … the trees with the furrowed bark and the foliage that was like little dark green sprays of soft braids, that signaled that she was getting close to the village. Close to the little house where her family lived.It was a past midday when she got to the side of the lake opposite the village.She couldn’t actually see the village. It was a ways behind the trees on the opposite shore, but she knew it was there. Her family. Her kru. So close. She could feel them there.And she knew that she was in the right spot too, because when she got to the coordinates Reva had told her, there was a sleeping bag there. Waiting for her on the shore of the lake.Which was thoughtful, because she didn’t have her leafy shelter to keep her warm anymore. And sleeping directly on the ground was very cold and unpleasant.When she set down her stuff and unrolled her sleeping bag, she found a note inside that said:
Your final trial is tomorrow. Camp here. Wait for it.
So she did.She dropped her fish trapping basket in the familiar clear water. The eel guts she’d loaded into it for bait that morning were a little stinkier now from the walk across the valley and the time in the open air, which the lake fish would probably like.She made sure her bucket of oniony transplants looked ok after the trek. Searched around for some dead branches to make a little campfire on the shore to keep her warm and hopefully cook some dinner for her. Gathered some of the curled up fern fronds from this side of the valley too.And then she just sat on the bank for a little while, looking out at the clear sparkly the lake. Watching the clean sparkly fish swim by in the water. Appreciating her home from this new angle. Looking at the tall red cedar trees on the opposite shore that hid the village from her. She could imagine it there though. The wooden houses. The barn. The garden. The chicken coop. The corn field. Could imagine everyone doing their chores.It was afternoon now.Maybe the kids were already doing their homework. Or swaying in their hammocks. Penn tinkering with something in the barn.She didn’t see anyone come to the lake. Maybe they’d opted for rabbit that night instead of fish. Maybe chicken.She managed to spear a fish with her four pronged spear, which she was pleased about. The extra prongs made up for her less than perfect aim. And it was nice, wading around in the cool clear water under the sun. Watching the fish swim by.She caught a nice sized fish in her basket trap too.Took a cool bath in the lake.Cooked the two clean silvery lake fish over her little campfire on the shore. Boiled the curled up fern fronds in her metal bowls.It was a meal for two really. Reva had said that no one would come to join her at her fire that night, but Clarke was so in the habit of feeding two by then. Feeding herself and the spirit of Lexa that was ever present in her thoughts.And her still achy muscles were happy to receive a meal for two.Her body felt warm and full and good when she crawled into her warm sleeping bag that night. For once, she didn’t even need the campfire to stay warm, and just let it burn down into glowing coals.She gazed up at the dark sky so packed with twinkling stars. At the big shimmering river of stars arching in a band across the night sky. The Milky Way she thought. It was purplish in some spots, cloudy in others, bright golden with starlight at the far end where a bunch stars clustered together. All of it so stunningly beautiful.Perfectly visible, perfectly framed by the gap in the trees around the lake.Had she ever actually slept under the stars before?She’d camped, sure. But always under trees. Because that was practical. Would protect her from surprise rain during the night. But falling asleep under this view was worth risking rain for.She wondered if that was why the kids had had her camp in this spot. For the view. Wondered if they’d meant for her to see it. A view this stunning was certainly meant to be seen, was meant to be appreciated.Looking up at that stunning view of countless twinkling stars stretched across the night sky … it felt like Nature was whispering in her ear, “Look how small you are little creature ... This is what magnificence looks like. This is what infinity looks like. More stars than you can count … distances vaster than your mind can fathom … more beauty than your little heart could possibly hold. More worlds than you could visit in countless lifetimes. Stars. Suns. Whole worlds blinking in and out of existence while you pick berries in the sunlight. While you eat your breakfast porridge. None the wiser. But I will show it to you … so that even you can see it … even with your small little eyes. With your too small mind to fathom. With your too small heart to hold all of its beauty. So that even in your small and finite existence, you can witness infinity.”Clarke pulled the edge of her sleeping bag up to her chin. Feeling small. Feeling that strange mix of human and animal. She wondered what the other creatures thought when they looked up at the stars. All those birds and bugs and animals that had used the stars to navigate at night.Had those birds who used them to fly south for the winter that she’d learned about in school looked out at the constellations and thought, ‘Yes. This way is south … but also … wow …”Clarke stared up at the stars for as long as she could. Her little heart thudding away in her chest at their twinkling beauty. Her mind filled with thoughts of the vastness of the universe, of galaxies, of time and space and infinity. Stared up at them until her eyelids grew heavy. Until they slid closed. Saw all those twinkling infinite stars in the darkness behind her eyelids as she drifted off to sleep. —— Day 7 —— Clarke woke up to the sound of birds chirping in the trees. The feeling of the cool morning air nipping at her cheeks, telling her it was time to get up.Her sleeping bag was so warm and cozy though. She laid there for a little while. Eyes closed. Just listening to the birds.And then she remembered …It was day 7.The last day of her trials.Lexa was just a lake away from her.She squirmed in her sleeping bag and sat up, suddenly impatient to get going.Wiped the sleep away from her eyes. Crawled out of her sleeping bag and saw a big pile of logs on the shore and a pile of rope.Saw a little note in Lexa’s bowl being held down by a rock.She made her way over to the note and read it:
Make a raft big enough for you and all your things with all these materials. Float home. Keep Lexa’s bow dry.
A raft?She … had never made a raft before … Had never even seen one in person before …She knew of the general concept of a raft ... as like … a metaphor … sending someone a life raft …And … she’d read that one book on the Ark growing up … The Life of Pi … The story of a boy lost at sea … who’d been on a big ship carrying zoo animals that had sunk in the ocean … Pi had managed to find a big lifeboat from the ship floating in the water … but some of the animals had found it too … including a big terrifying tiger. He’d had to make a raft to stay safe … to keep his distance from the lifeboat with the animals on it … Had watched while the hyena ate the other animals in the lifeboat … and then watched as the tiger ate the hyena … And then Pi had befriended the tiger … trained it … fed it … kept it alive. And then Pi became the tiger. The ending had been so beautiful and sad that she had cried and cried when she’d finished it …But it honestly hadn’t taught her much about actually building a raft.It was more about the will to live and struggling to survive against impossible odds and the heroic and clever and horrific things we will do to survive … The morality of those choices and the stories we tell ourselves to cope with our actions … and … the need to believe in something.It was the story of Clarke’s life really ... She could have written it herself …She shook her head a little to focus her thoughts …Okay … a raft …She had no idea how to make one … but …It would be kinda cool … if they had a raft … that … the kids could use to cross the lake … or spearfish from … or … just … float on … on a pretty day … looking up at the blue sky …The raft … the idea of it … the happiness it would give her kids was … something worth believing in …Yes.She wanted to make her kids and her houman a raft.She started inspecting the logs.They were pretty long honestly. Maybe 10 feet long. All cut to the same length. More than a dozen of them. 14 of them. And there was another log … or … more like … a pole … long and straight … made from a different kind of tree.She wasn’t sure what the pole was for. But she guessed that it was necessary.Clearly some thought had gone into preparing these materials for her.Penn must have been the one who’d figured out what would be necessary to make a raft.But this was Callie and Tris’ test right?They must have been the ones who had dreamed up the idea of a raft and then Penn had figured out the practicalities.She dragged one of the logs out into the water and watched it float. Watched it bob and sway in the clear water.It was … kinda awesome how a big log could just float like that … like it didn’t weigh a thing … even though it was so much heavier than the tiny stones that sank straight to the bottom when they were tossed in the lake.Nature was so cool and strange and mysterious like that.Her creations full of hidden possibilities.Clarke pulled the log back onto the shore.Looked at all 14 logs.How hard could this be?The logs already floated.And she had a bunch of them.More than enough to carry her and all her stuff.All she needed to do was bind them together with the rope and float across with her stuff and her bow on her back so it didn’t get wet.But …The rope they’d left her … it was just four pieces of rope … and … they weren’t that long.Were kinda short honestly …Maybe two feet long each?Huh …Well … ok …She’d never made a raft before but … she was pretty confident that rafts required a bunch more rope than four short pieces to hold them together …Even if she tied the four short ropes to each other they wouldn’t be long enough.She could really go for an instruction manual right about now …Why hadn’t they given her enough rope?All the other trials she’d done had been fair … tough but fair.And they had plenty of rope in the village.But … now that she’d actually made string with her own two hands out of plant fibers with Penn … she … understood how much time and effort and how many plants would go into making a lot of rope … of even medium thickness …It … was good to use as little as possible … just on principle … because rope had so many uses and was so inherently valuable …And maybe rope used on a raft, that got wet all the time, would have to be replaced a lot …Like how Penn had said that bowstrings needed to be dry in order to stay strong.She arranged the logs in different ways on the shore. Trying to figure out this puzzle. Laid all 14 of them side by side.How to bind them together with so little rope though …She maybe had enough rope to tie two of the logs together securely.But there was no way a raft that small would be able to carry her and all her things across the lake and definitely ensure that Lexa’s bow stayed dry.
Fuck.
She needed to think about this.As much as she hated to stop taking action to get to Lexa and sit down and think … she had to …If camping and surviving in a post-apocalyptic world had taught her anything, it was the value of sitting and thinking before acting. The value of thinking things through … step by step.Having any measure of comfort outdoors required keeping busy, but you had to be smart about how you kept busy. Had to think things through to ensure that the tasks you did would leave you with everything you needed at the end of the day. No firewood forgotten to be collected. No water forgotten to be brought back to camp and boiled.So she took a seat on the shore and stared at the ropes and logs and just … thought about them … her chin resting in her hand.It would have been nice if they’d left her a clue.She’d happily give back some of the logs in exchange for a clue.There were more logs than she needed really.Enough for a nice big raft … but who even cared about that if she couldn’t actually bind the logs to make them into a raft that would hold together?She grumbled at the logs.Figured out that the one long pole was for steering. For pushing off against the bottom of the lake so she could push the raft across the water to the opposite shore.That was something.A small victory.Was she supposed to use her knife somehow?Cut up her blanket and backpack and use them to bind all the logs together maybe?She checked the note again.No.She was supposed to use these materials and carry her stuff on the raft.She got antsy. Futzed with the logs some more. Started arranging them in different ways. Picked up the rope and felt it with her hands. It was pretty thin rope honestly. Only as thick as her thumb.An hour had passed.Then another.Fuck.Should she spearfish something to eat?No.Fuck that.She’d eat with her houman … after she floated across the lake on the excellent raft she’d built with Lexa’s dry bow on her back … victorious.She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and looked across the lake to see … her kids … or … 7 of them anyway … walking together from the tree line to the shore on the opposite side of the lake.Her heart fluttered in her chest at the sight of them and a big smile spread across her face.She was just about to call out a greeting to them … and … maybe ask for some advice … when she saw Reva leading a bound and gagged Lexa out of the trees.She couldn’t see Lexa’s expression, couldn’t hear her, she was too far away … but she could see just from Lexa’s stiff posture that she was fucking furious. Just knew that Lexa was growling through that red gag tied between her teeth.She’d never seen Lexa tied up before … well … she’d never seen Lexa tied up entirely against her will before ...Not with a gag anyway ...She watched Lexa try to walk straight into the water and saw Reva pull her back, put a hand on Lexa’s shoulder and shove her down onto her knees on the shoreline, so that Lexa, bound and gagged, was looking directly at her from across the lake.Okay … the kids were not gonna be helping her solve this puzzle.Shouting out questions to them about how to make the raft with too little rope would be pointless.They were clearly her opponents in this trial. Had taken her houman hostage.Had apparently gone full Lord of the Flies in her absence.Reva had mentioned during their wrestling match that they had Lexa tied up at the house to stop her from going to find Clarke during her trials … but … that had just been … a joke … right?Had just been … a goad … to piss Clarke off and get her to focus and get her shit together and pin Reva a third time so she could achieve her victory in the wrestling trial.
Right?
Or … had Reva not been pretending to be a mean teenager during their match … Maybe Reva actually was a mean teenager? Was using this opportunity to … kinda … humiliate Lexa … And the other kids were just like … letting Reva pull this shit? Were complicit.If they’d actually had Lexa tied up for a week … well … then the kids would absolutely need to be punished …They’d have to invent a punishment.Once Clarke had won this trial and was basically Lexa’s houman in all but the small formality of a bonding ceremony, her first act would be to punish her seemingly extremely well-behaved but apparently actually quite naughty children.But in the meantime, Clarke needed to get her shit together and focus.She couldn’t just let Lexa watch her flail with these goddamn logs with a gag in her mouth. Tied up on her knees. Waiting.She turned back to the logs.Started thinking through this puzzle from scratch.She could do this.She had 14 logs.More than she needed.Four ropes.Less rope than she needed.Why four?What she needed was two very long ropes that she could weave over and under all the logs to keep them all tied together …But … if she did that, the raft might still be … kinda … unstable.She tied two of the logs together with the four ropes to test that theory … and … yeah …Even with two logs pretty well tied together with four ropes, whichever log she stepped on sunk lower, made both logs slant so her foot sank into the water.If she tied all the logs together, even with infinite rope, the whole raft would be kinda … bendy … and … unstable …What she needed was for all the logs in the raft to stay straight.Flat.She started futzing with the logs. Laid them out on the shore again … rearranging them. Instead of having it be 14 logs across, she made it 12 across, with one log laying under each end of the raft.Yeah …If she could just tie all the logs to the two logs laying under each end of the raft somehow … then the whole raft would be more stable. Would stay straight and flat wherever she stepped …And then it hit her.She didn’t need infinite rope to do this.She just needed to have the logs packed in tightly side by side … and then tie the under logs at each end of the raft to the last log on each side of the raft … at the corners.Make a frame.She had enough rope for that.Four ropes for four corners.She tried that.Made a square frame with four logs tied together at the corners.Laid all the other logs across the frame.Pushed the whole raft into the water and stepped onto it.It was good!Floated all as one piece.Was a lot more stable.The logs under her feet still sank down a little lower in the water when she stood on them, but it wasn’t too bad … her feet would get wet … but if she had the bow on her back it would stay dry …And then a few of the middle logs that weren’t under her feet started to slip out of the frame and float away. And then the logs under her feet started to shift because the middle logs weren’t lying beside them to hold them in place anymore. And then whole thing started to slide apart.
Goddammit …
She couldn’t let that happen.All the logs laying across the frame needed to stay put. Otherwise the whole thing could fall apart in the middle of the lake and her bow would get wet.Grumbling, she dragged the escaped logs and the frame back onto the shore.But she was getting closer … she could feel it.How to keep the middle logs in place?Maybe she could pack the logs tighter together side by side when she made the frame?Or maybe the side pressure would just make the middle logs pop out and float away?She really wished that she had actually seen a raft at some point in her life.She closed her eyes and tried to remember if The Life of Pi had had a page of cover art when she’d read it on her tablet on the Ark.But she couldn’t remember if it had.Grr …Maybe if she made a smaller raft?Maybe if she only used enough logs to fit under her while she sat down on the raft she could hold the logs in place on the frame with her weight.But then her bow would probably get wet.The bow was really big. More than four feet long. If she had it on slung across her back while she was sitting on the raft then the end of the bow would dip into the water that would slip up through the little spaces between the logs beneath her.She could try to hold the bow up with one hand and use her other hand to steer the raft with the long pole, sitting down to keep the middle logs in place with her weight, but she probably couldn’t steer with just one hand, or sitting down.
Grr …
She looked across the lake at Lexa, who was still bound and gagged and looking at her helplessly from the opposite shore.Think Clarke.
Think.
She needed something to hold down the middle logs … something to keep them from slipping out of the frame ... Something to keep them pressed down against the logs lying across each end of the raft ...She didn’t have enough rope to tie each log down to the frame ...She only had logs.Too many logs.Clarke slapped her hand to her forehead.
That was it.
Too many logs.14 logs.What she needed was one log over and another log under each end of the raft to keep all the other logs in place between them. To tie the over and under logs to each other at each corner of the raft.That was fucking smart.Penn had designed a raft that used minimal rope.That would still be big and stable.She untied the rope from the frame. Rearranged the logs.10 across.Laid out the two crossbeams, one over and one under the front end of the raft. Two more crossbeams, one over and another under the back end of the raft.The number of logs, 14, that had been the clue.With only 10 logs in the middle, the crossbeams were longer than the raft was wide. The extra length left the plenty of space for the rope that would tie the upper and lower crossbeams together at each corner.This was gonna work.She grabbed a piece of rope.Looped the rope around the upper and lower crossbeams at one corner of the raft in a figure-eight … so that the cross in the center of the 8 would keep the end log from sliding out between the two crossbeams.She just … needed a good strong knot …And then she remembered … the knot that Madi had had her practice tying with those two pieces of rope the day before her trials had started …Had had her practice tying with rope that was exactly the same thickness as this rope. That was the same shade of brown even.The similarities between that rope and this one had been another clue. A clue from Madi about what kind of knot she should tie with this rope.
God her kids were clever …
Clarke grinned to herself as she looped the figure eights around the crossbeams and tied Madi’s knots at each corner of the raft.Pushed the raft out into the water and stood in the center of it.
Fuck yes.
She had a raft now.A big, stable, good raft that she could stand on confidently and steer standing up, with both hands on the pole. No logs could slip out of the middle now. They would be held in place by the pressure of the upper and lower crossbeams tied tight together at each corner of the raft.She looked across the lake at Lexa, still bound and gagged and on her knees on the opposite shore, and dusted off her hands in a big exaggerated gesture … big enough for Lexa to see across the expanse of glassy water between them.A gesture that said:
I fucking did it. You’re my houman now. And I’m coming for you.
She pulled the raft back onto the edge of the shore and then read the note again.
Make a raft big enough for you and all your things with all these materials. Float home. Keep Lexa’s bow dry.
She pulled her fish trapping basket out of the lake and put it on the raft to take home. It was a damn good basket trap that had kept her fed for days and she was gonna keep it … was gonna use it … and … just … have it … as … a sort of momento of her trials. She packed her backpack with her bowls and stuff from the shore and slid the straps over her shoulders. Slid her spear through the lower loops of the backpack straps behind her back. Put the sleeping bag on the raft. Put her metal bucket of oniony transplants on the raft. There was plenty of space for all her stuff and more.She slung Lexa’s bow onto her back over her backpack and picked up the long pole off the shore. Pushed her raft into the water.And stepped onto it.Started pushing off against the floor of the lake with her long pole, her raft gliding easily across the surface of the glassy water. Holding together perfectly with just four short and well-knotted pieces of rope.Her head held high.Her chest puffed out.Fucking triumphant as she pushed her raft across the water.Looking every bit the Grounder warrior with the bow slung over her back and the ends of her spear poking out on either side of her through the straps of her backpack.She looked out at her huge family on the opposite shore as she pushed off against the bottom of the lake with her pole.Looked across the water at her bound and gagged houman who she loved so much … Who was … kinda … wriggling on her knees to get onto her feet as Clarke’s raft got closer.But Reva’s hand stayed on Lexa’s shoulder keeping her down on her knees.Honestly, was that really necessary?She had passed the trial.Had passed all the trials.Had built this awesome raft … that … she was more and more proud of with each push of her pole.And … just to ensure that the bow stayed dry … and … maybe show off a little … she didn’t even step off the raft when she got to the shallows on the opposite shore.But Reva still hadn’t let Lexa go. Still had her hand on Lexa’s shoulder.Lexa was still on her knees on the shore.Grumbling through her gag.Maybe Reva had kept Lexa tied up all week?Clarke stepped onto the shore and dropped her pole.Stepped right over Lexa, who was trying to say something through her gag.“What the hell is this?” Clarke shot a look at Reva as her hands got to work on the knots around Lexa’s wrists.Reva stood up tall, “It is a tradition.”“Does Lexa know it’s a tradition?” Clarke grumbled, tugging at the tight knots, “When she tried to walk into the lake to get away?”Reva clasped her hands behind her back, “You may ask her yourself.”Clarke yanked the rope free from Lexa’s wrists and helped her to her feet. Pulled her into a long hug and felt Lexa’s strong arms wrap around her. Nuzzled her nose into the crook of Lexa’s neck, breathing in the comforting smell of her houman, reveling in the feeling of being in Lexa’s arms again … And then she remembered the gag … leaned back and pulled it out of her mouth. Ran her thumb gently over Lexa’s cheek and asked, “Is that true? It’s a tradition?”Lexa rubbed her wrist where the rope had been and shot a salty look at Reva, “Yes … But … a very archaic one. Friends and family kidnapping one partner for the other to retrieve before the bonding ceremony. It … symbolizes a sort of … transfer of ownership. I … did not realize that was what they were doing.”Reva tilted up her chin, her hands still behind her back, “I will accept any punishment you see fit.”“No.“Clarke turned and looked at Madi.“It was my idea,” Madi said, tilting up her chin too, “I asked Reva to do it.”Clarke’s eyebrows raised, “You?”Madi gave a curt nod.Clarke leaned down in front if her, “Why would you do this to Lexa?”“‘Cause …,” Madi looked back at her, “‘Cause … my parents did it … before their bonding ceremony … They … told me about it …”Clarke’s expression crumbled.Madi so rarely talked about her parents. And this was the second time that she had mentioned them during the trials … It was … significant that she was doing so now …Madi’s birth parents had done this tradition … and now … now she wanted Clarke and Lexa, her current parents to do it too.Clarke felt Lexa’s hand on her shoulder and looked at her. And just from the soft expression on Lexa’s face she knew that they weren’t gonna be punishing Madi for this. They weren’t gonna be punishing Reva for it either … Reva … who was willing to endure any punishment to give Madi this …“I’m not hurt … I’m fine …,” Lexa said gently and squeezed Clarke’s shoulder.Clarke sighed and crouched down, gave Madi a tight hug. And Madi squeezed her back, said against her shoulder, “Congratulations Clarke kom Kliron Kru. You passed your trials. I’m so proud of you.”Clarke leaned back and gave her a watery smile, “I’m so proud of you too.”Madi grinned at the compliment.Clarke stood up and pulled Reva into a hug. Whispered, “Thank you” into her ear.And then she hugged each of the kids.Xander, Penn, Callie, Tris and Otan, who each said their congratulations and welcomed her home.She leaned down to hug Amelia and then leaned back a little and said, “Did you give me a trial Amelia?”She couldn’t remember a trial from Amelia.Amelia shook her head, “I do not believe in bonding trials …,” she cast a sideways glance at the other kids, “Lexa has chosen you. That should be enough.”Clarke smiled at her.Apparently Amelia had been a conscientious objector.Clarke … kinda loved the trials though … the chance to prove herself to the kids. The chance to prove herself to Lexa. The chance to prove herself to herself even. The time with Nature. And all the time and trouble the kids had taken to plan these trials for her was really sweet. She appreciated the time she’d gotten to spend sitting with the kids by her campfire too. She hadn’t gotten to have that campfire time with Amelia though.And as if Amelia was reading her mind, she said, “I am sorry that I didn’t visit you during your tests … but … I thought better to stay here and work on your gift.”Amelia shot another look at the natblidas, “That is how one should respond to the news of a loved one’s intended bonding.”Clarke chuckled, “That’s very sweet of you. But you know that you are the gift. Being in your family.”Amelia smirked at her, “You will like this gift.”Clarke stood up and smiled at her, “I’m sure I’ll love it.”Lexa stepped over by Clarke’s side and said to Amelia, “Will you tell her?”Amelia grinned, “We’re giving you your house back. So we don’t take up your floor anymore. All our beds have been set up in the meeting house.”Clarke’s smile faltered.“It has enough space for all of us. I used your notebook about what the houses have to bring everything we need there,” Amelia added.Clarke looked at the kids.That … was a thoughtful gift. But … she liked having all the natblidas in her house ... Having them sprawled out across her living room floor at night, playing games and reading and chatting with each other in front of her fireplace. It made the house feel so warm and cozy to have all her kids there.“You have been very generous with us Clarke … sharing your home …,” Xander looked at her, “But a newly bonded couple should have their own home. And … it is good for us to have our own rooms.”Clarke nodded a little and looked at the kids, “Thank you. I still want you to come to our house for breakfast though … and … to hang out … and … for school.”All 8 of the kids grinned an identical grin at her.“School makes more sense in the meeting house Clarke …,” Lexa said gently, “There are more tables. And it’s a good space for many people. Has many comfortable places for them to sit while they read. More space to play games inside ... For them to train indoors when it rains ...“Clarke shifted on her feet a little.It … did make sense … of course the kids needed space. That was just … obvious … logical.But … she would miss them …Madi smiled at her, “It’s not even that far. The meeting house is a stone’s throw from your porch … more of a toss really …”Clarke sighed, “You’re going too.”Madi nodded, “Yes. All the natblidas are going.”“We’re all natblidas …,” Clarke grumbled a little.Madi smirked, “You know what I mean.”Clarke sighed again.“Just … try it … for a little while …,” Reva said gently, “It … does not have to be permanent. We … haven’t built permanent rooms …”“We built tents for each of us so we all have a space. Except the little ones …,” Penn added and then looked at Calli, Tris and Otan who were already unloading Clarke’s raft, Xander went to pull it up onto the shore, “They will stay in the tents with each of us when it is our turn to watch them.”Clarke grumbled a little more.Even the littlest ones wouldn’t be staying in her house.“Give it a week …,” Reva smiled at her, “Nothing is permanent.”Clarke nodded a little.“I have a gift for you too …,” Lexa smiled, “Two gifts. You will have one tonight and one tomorrow.”Clarke smiled at her.She’d love to give Lexa a gift as soon as they were alone together. Several ‘gifts’.But then she remembered that she had a real gift for Lexa too.She pulled the bow off her back and held it out to Lexa with both hands, “I … made this for you. Penn showed me how.”Lexa grinned at her new toy and took it, ran her hands along the wood, admiring it. Turned to face the lake and pulled way back on the string to test its strength, her stance wide, her muscly arms bulging as she gripped the thick handhold in the center of the bow, pretending to aim an arrow.Lexa nodded to herself and then turned back to Clarke, said with a little grin, her green eyes sparkling, “It is a very fine bow. Mochof houman.”Clarke grinned back at her, “Still gotta do that bonding ceremony.”Lexa slid the backpack off Clarke’s shoulders, handed it off to one of the kids along with Clarke’s spear and slung the bow over her own back, then said, “I have had enough of waiting …,” put her around Clarke and started walking her back to their house, the kids trailing behind them.“Congratulations …,” Lexa smiled at her and squeezed Clarke against her side a little as they walked home, “I am told you did quite well in your trials. I … hope you’re not hurt …”Clarke bumped her hip against Lexa’s, “I’m fine. Better than fine. I’m great.”She pressed a kiss on Lexa’s cheek and Lexa gave her a little smile.“Please tell me they didn’t have you tied up all week …,” Clarke said quietly, so the kids trailing behind them on their walk back to the village didn’t hear.“Not the entire time …,” Lexa sighed, “Only today … and … when they stole you from our bed … and … for much of that day … when I … protested your abduction … Then only shackles for my ankles … so I could still walk … but … not run away to find you … And … someone was always watching me … to make sure I did not walk to you …”Clarke looked at her and blinked, it … didn’t look like Lexa was joking.Clarke raised an eyebrow, “Where the hell did they find shackles?”Lexa sighed again, “In the barn. On a farm, shackles have many uses. Hauling things. Connecting the plow to a horse to till a field …,” Lexa glanced at her, “Keeping your devoted caretaker a prisoner in her own home.”Clarke chuckled, “I’m sorry they did that to you. But I was fine … really … You didn’t need to worry.”“So they said …,” Lexa nodded, “… after their visits with you. But … I could not be sure … Did not know what they were planning … They can be very … creative when given free reign.”Clarke smirked at her, “They are very creative. Their tests were good. Fair. Pretty cool honestly. Nothing I couldn’t handle … eventually.”Lexa glanced at her, “Yes … they said it would be an insult to you if I went to see you … said that I should have more confidence in your abilities …”Clarke grinned at that, at the thought of the natblidas defending her competence to Lexa.“You should …,” Clarke looked at her, “I’m strong. I know how to take care of myself in the woods. And I’m creative too.”Lexa squeezed her arm around Clarke, “I only care that you are not hurt. Even the strong and smart can get hurt. Even if they do everything right.”They walked up to the steps of the porch of their house, and Clarke watched the natblidas keep walking past to the meeting house … already lost in conversation with each other. Penn was carrying Clarke’s bucket of transplants. No doubt already planning to plant them in the garden. Madi was carrying her spear and backpack. Callie carrying the sleeping bag. Clarke’s eyes trailed after them.“It’s a good space for them …,” Lexa said quietly, “… you will see when you visit.”Clarke arched an eyebrow at her, “When I visit my own children in another house?”Lexa smirked, “They have set it up well. You will see.”Clarke sighed and Lexa led her inside, pulled the bow off her back and laid it down carefully on the table.Clarke’s hands slid around Lexa’s waist and tugged her in close.“You have a present for me houman?” Clarke husked out, and tugged Lexa tight against her again, leaned in close enough for to Lexa feel her breath on her lips.Lexa made a little growling sound and leaned in, kissed Clarke long and slow, gave her the most tender ‘I missed you’ kiss.“How about a back rub first …,” Lexa smiled out, “And a neck rub … and then …”Clarke slid her hands under Lexa’s ass and lifted her up, carried her off to bed to claim her prize.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

After Clarke returned to the village from her trails, she spent the rest of the day in her little house with Lexa … showing her houman exactly how much she’d missed her …But by nighttime, dinner time, they needed to refuel.They went outside in their sleep clothes with jackets on over them.“Where are the kids and the campfire?” Clarke asked.Surely someone was on dinner duty for their chore that night.Lexa took her hand and smiled, “The meeting house.”And then she walked Clarke to the meeting house.And … wow … the meeting house looked … so transformed.The last time she’d been there, it looked kinda like a big warehouse, with its high ceiling beams and the big round stone fire pit in the center of the big open space that was filled with tables and chairs where the villagers had eaten their meals together.But now, there were six really good-sized tents set up for each of the older kids inside the huge space. The tents were big enough to walk into standing up, made from blankets and other materials from the village houses, to create maybe 10 x 10 foot “rooms” for each of them. Some of the colorful banners the villagers had used to decorate the village were now hanging from the tents. It looked like every tent had a different color banner.Given how high the ceiling of the meeting house was, the tents were a much more practical solution for making ‘rooms’ than attempting to build wooden walls all the way up to the high ceiling.And there were also comfy chairs and couches from some of the village houses now arranged around the big circular stone fire pit in the center.It was … cozy.Especially with the golden glow of the fire in the fire pit warming the space.The kids were already eating. Drinking from their soup bowls.There was a big steaming pot of stew on the stone ledge of the fire pit with a stack of plates beside it. And another shorter black pot with a lid hanging from a tripod over the fire.And Clarke could smell something cooking … something that smelled … amazing …“You did not wait for us?” Lexa smiled at Penn as they sat down on one of the couches by the fire.“We weren’t sure you were coming out …,” Madi answered for him, “I told them it was a 50/50 chance.”“We wouldn’t miss dinner time,” Lexa winked at her.Clarke was still marveling at how totally transformed the meeting house was. All the kids’ tents, the cozy furniture from the village houses they’d arranged around the fire pit, and what appeared to be a training area in the back, if the weapons leaned against the wall there were anything to go by.She looked at Amelia, “You planned all this?”Amelia grinned, “I was the planner, but everyone helped … carrying in beds, building the tents. Madi came up with the idea of using the banners to decorate them.”Clarke shot Madi a little grin. This place was a meeting house for Madi’s people once again … it was a meeting house for the natblidas. Decorated with the banners of Louwoda Kliron Kru. She could see why Madi wanted to stay here with her siblings instead of the house. The whole place was like a giant clubhouse for the kids, decorated just how they wanted it with their own little personal touches.She looked at Amelia, “This is amazing. Really. You did a great job.”Amelia gave a small nod of acknowledgment.“Are you hungry?” Lexa squeezed Clarke’s hand, “Ready for your first gift?”“I’m starving …,” Clarke smirked back at her, “And whatever’s been cooking in here smells awesome.”“It’s our farm’s latest achievement …,” Penn smiled.“Penn figured out how to make a sort of corn flour with the hand grinder in the barn …,” Lexa explained, “And I figured out how to make corn oil.”Penn used a thick towel to lift the lid off the short black pot hanging over the fire. He picked up a pair of tongs off the ledge and picked something up out of the pot and put it on a plate. Handed the plate to Callie, which meant that it had to be chicken … Since Callie had been the one who’d found the villagers’ lost chickens in the woods … some of whom were now residents of the farm’s chicken coop … Callie always got the first piece of chicken any time they had it now.But … it didn’t look like any chicken meal Clarke had ever seen.Penn pulled another piece of the strangely prepared chicken out of the low pot, put it on a plate and handed it to Clarke, saying, “To the victor.”Clarke smiled at him and looked down at her plate. The piece of chicken smelled incredible, made her mouth water, but it looked … pretty strange. Like it was covered in tree bark or something.“What is this?” Clarke asked Lexa quietly.“It’s the best thing ever …,” Lexa grinned back at her, then nudged her knee, “Well … one of the best. This is one thing we can make with oil and corn flour together. It’s fried chicken.”Clarke blinked back at her.She could … kinda tell that she was supposed to be impressed. This was a gift after all.But Clarke had no idea what fried chicken was. Most of her life had been spent eating dehydrated ration biscuits on the Ark. In her time on the ground, she’d eaten pretty much whatever was around. Whatever someone else was cooking. She’d had a few of the different clans’ specialties during her time in Polis living in the tower and at the market stalls. Had had different kinds of bird. Had had chicken there too.But fried chicken was entirely new to her.And even though it smelled so good … she … wasn’t quite sure about it …It looked so strange.But then again, eel had looked really strange too and it was now her favorite food.She looked over at Callie who was chomping away happily at her chicken and picked up her own piece.It felt weird too. A little oily and … kinda …rough against her fingertips.Clarke held it up to her mouth and took a tentative bite and … oh god …Clarke groaned out loud.It was fucking delicious.Crispy and juicy.“Oh my god …,” Clarke mumbled as she chewed and took another bite.Lexa grinned at her.“It’s as good as eel … maybe better,” Clarke mumbled through her bite.Lexa chuckled, “Eel is very nice.”“That’s the skull you brought back?” Madi asked, “In your backpack?”Clarke nodded.Lexa sighed, “We must all be careful with eel though … It can be poisonous.”Clarke’s eyebrows raised, “Really?”Lexa nodded, “It’s fine cooked. But … raw … the blood is poisonous,” she looked at the kids, “Just … don’t let any blood get into your eyes or mouth while cleaning it. Wash your hands after you clean it …”The kids all nodded.And honestly, Clarke was kinda grateful to the eels for being so slimy. It had forced her to wash her hands after handling them each time.Madi fetched Clarke’s backpack from her tent and they popped the eel skull into a bowl of water to boil over the fire to make extra sure it was safe and clean. Clarke cut up one of the sweet roots from her backpack and handed around slices of it. She told the kids about the eels, about the marsh and her time with Nature. About the oniony plants in the metal bucket she’d brought back to be transplanted into their garden, which Penn agreed to plant in the morning. She told them about Lexa bears, their little black masks, which Lexa grinned at. Reva tried to tell Clarke that that animal had a different name, but Clarke wouldn’t hear of it. She told them Lexa bears were protected and should not be hunted because they were important for the health of the valley. Told them she’d draw them pictures of Lexa bears and their cubs so they knew what they looked like. Would draw them pictures of the marsh too and add it to their map.Penn told everyone of his latest experiments making different kinds of arrows. How burning their sharp wooden points a little over a fire made the points very strong so that they wouldn’t break … How burning the tips a little to strengthen them made metal arrowhead unnecessary. How they could use feathers from the chicken coop as the feather guides for the backs of the arrows.It was so cozy and homey being in the meeting house, being back home with all her kids chatting around a fire eating dinner.Clarke’s heart felt so full. So grateful for this life they were all living together, for the valley, for Nature. That she had survived all of the struggles and trials in her life and wound up here, of all places, in this perfect paradise with a new family she just adored. With a houman that she just adored. With this new peace settled so deeply into her bones.“Tomorrow, we will build a tent for Aden,” Callie said.Lexa smiled, “Blue is his favorite color.”Madi nodded, “Then I will find a blue banner for his tent.”One more natblida and their little home would be complete.“And then we have a bonding ceremony to plan …,” Amelia smiled.“I will be making one of the desserts …,” Reva grinned at Clarke, “It will be good.”And Clarke grinned back at her at the memory of being in the mud pit with Reva, the two of them covered head to toe in muck during their wrestling match, when Clarke had goaded Reva, had told her that she would be making a dessert for the bonding ceremony when Clarke pinned her and won the trial.“So much has changed …,” Lexa looked at the kids, “… for each of us. We are a new kru with choices to make about how we wish to live. What our traditions will be. How we should develop the farm. How much we should train for combat when it seems that we have no enemies … Whether we should train at all. Who should oversee the farm …““You manage the farm …,” Penn answered.Lexa nodded, “I have been … yes. But I am not Heda here. How we make decisions could be done differently.”“You listen well to what we want already Lexa …,” Reva said, “And you are good at managing the farm ...”“I’ve merely had more practice …,” Lexa smiled back at her, “… but each of you are good leaders as well … and will be even better with practice. If you wish … you could each take a turn as my second. Learn how to oversee everything. That way everyone understands how to manage the farm … in case … I were to ever be injured or unable.”“Will Aden want to rule when he comes here?” Amelia asked.“It’s possible …,” Lexa answered, “And with the flame, Aden will have a great deal of useful knowledge to share about how to help the valley and what we can do with the farm. But … that will likely be a ways off … It will take time before Aden can come here … For now … we must decide how we will make decisions …”The kids nodded at that, chewing the idea over.And honestly, Clarke was surprised that Lexa was offering to change how they made decisions … that she was willing to hand over the leadership of the farm to one of the kids … or at least train them for it … But training them to manage the farm did make a kind of sense. There would always be a backup then … if anything happened. And everyone would understand how each of their tasks and chores fit into the bigger picture of running the farm.“Lexa knows the farm though …,” Penn said, “Aden will be a valuable contributor, but he will need to learn how we do things here before he can lead us. If we are to decide who leads us … in our own kru … I vote that Lexa stays Heda until Aden arrives and has had a chance to learn … and then we decide who will lead … and for how long.”Reva nodded, “I agree.”Callie called for a vote … and Lexa was unanimously chosen to be Heda.“I think Clarke should be your first second …,” Madi said, “Clarke made all the records of the valley … She could make a good notebook of how to run the farm for us to learn from when it’s our turn.”The kids nodded at that.“The Kliron Heda should go next …,” Xander added.Madi grinned at him, “I’m happy to be a second, but Lexa should be Kliron Heda now.”“You will always be Kliron Heda …,” Lexa smiled at her, “I am merely the Farm Heda.”“I still wish to train …,” Reva glanced at the other kids, “Perhaps it’s not … necessary anymore but …”“I wanna train,” Otan said, “I like to train.”“Me too,” Madi said.They took another vote and all the kids decided that they wanted to keep training.And Clarke kinda understood that. The training was familiar and bonding for the natblidas, something they all did together. Part of their culture. their history. And everyone should probably know how to defend themselves and the valley … just in case any other humans ever showed up there …Maybe somewhere in the big world there were other humans who had managed to survive somehow. Who were in an underground bunker somewhere.It didn’t seem likely of course. But anything was possible.The Mountain Men had been living in a bunker for a century after all. Maybe there were other bunkers out in the world that the people inside had never left after the first praimfaya.Maybe some other bunker people would find their way out in radiation suits and find the valley. It was good to be prepared.As everyone chatted around the fire, Clarke thought about Raven and Bellamy, Monty and Harper, Murphy and Emori and Echo up in space ... She’d been so busy with Lexa and the natblidas and the farm that she hadn’t thought about them in a while.She hoped that they’d found peace living on the Ring. That they were doing ok up there. That the algae from the farm didn’t suck too much …Monty and Harper had each other at least. So did Murphy and Emori. Having someone you loved with you could make even the nastiest algae bearable. And Raven had the ship itself. The Ring.Clarke was pretty sure that tech and machines were Raven’s greatest loves.Honestly, Raven might actually belong in space. On a ship. In the stars.Echo and Emori were probably having a rough go of it though …She couldn’t even imagine what it would be like for a Grounder to live in space. Space. The ship. The tech. The whir of machines. Everything would be so completely foreign to them.She didn’t know Emori all that well … or Echo at all really … but from what she had seen, they were survivors. Adaptable. Clever. And those were the key qualities living in space required.After dinner, Lexa hung out with the kids by the fire pit and Madi gave Clarke a tour of the meeting house. Showed Clarke the reading area they’d set up with big comfy chairs and a rug and little end-tables from the village houses where readers could put their candles to read at night. She showed Clarke the training area they’d set up in the back that had a thick pile of woven mats from the village houses on the floor so they could wrestle and fall down on without getting to hurt too bad. Showed Clarke the area for games they had set up. There was a big round slice of a tree trunk on the wall serving as a target for them to practice throwing knives at. And another target made from softer wood for them to practice shooting blow-darts at through some hollowed out reeds the kids had found and dried out.Clarke kinda wished that the kids’ “games” were less violent.But Madi showed her the chessboard they had set up on a table in the back too. And it looked like someone was whittling some fancy new chess pieces that were more intricate than the very simple ones Lexa had made for Madi when she’d first come to the valley. Two knights, two horse-head pieces had already been carved. A rook, the castle, was in the middle of being carved.It was crazy to think that after praimfaya, these chess pieces, these horses and castles, might be the only horses and castles left on the face of the earth. And when they finished carving them, the king and queen pieces might be the last kings and queens anywhere on the face of the earth too.When was the last time the earth had been free of any kings or queens?Probably thousands of years ago. Tens of thousands. However long it had been before humans had existed.Madi took Clarke to her tent and showed it to her.It was so cute.Madi had a bed set up. Warm blankets. The sheets Clarke had brought back for her from Becca’s house long ago. The pillow too. She had a little writing desk and chair set up. Little trinkets and mementos lined along the back edge of the desk. A candle in a stand to light the space. And another comfy reading chair.The reading chair made Clarke proud.Madi’s reading skills had been pretty rudimentary when Clarke had first come to the valley. Clarke had had to write a few action stories from Lexa’s life and her own in a notebook to entice Madi into practicing her reading outside of school, which Madi had eventually done so she could read the stories herself. They had come a long way since then. Madi was a solid reader now. And having all the other natblidas around, who all loved to read and had big vocabularies for their ages only encouraged Madi to read more and expand her vocabulary too.“I left my real bed in the house …,” Madi looked at her, “… so I can stay over sometimes. Or … so the other natblidas can.”Clarke smiled at her, “Looks to me like you have two real beds now.”“One family though,” Madi smiled.“You’re happy?” Clarke asked.“Hell yeah,” Madi grinned, a phrase that she must have heard from Clarke, “You?”Clarke grinned back at her, “Hell yes.”Clarke gave Madi a long hug, and then she got Lexa to go back to their own little house, hand in hand.“There’s no way they’ll come back to the house now …,” Clarke sighed, “The meeting house is too cool.”Lexa smiled, “We will see them all the time Clarke. And they’re so happy with it. That’s what matters. You would not believe how hard they worked to set it up in just a few days …”“While I was gone …,” Clarke glanced at her as they stepped up the porch steps to their house.Lexa chuckled as they walked through the door, “Don’t take it personally Clarke. They have set up a home for themselves in the valley. That is what you wanted … And you still have me here …”Clarke grabbed Lexa and kissed her, mumbled, “True. I do have you …” and kissed her again.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The next morning, Clarke woke up to the feeling of Lexa pressed against her side, pressing soft kisses down the side of her neck.“If you want to make the natblidas breakfast … it’s time to wake up …,” Lexa whispered.Clarke growled a little and rolled them over. Gave Lexa some slow, growly morning kisses.“Or … they could make themselves breakfast …,” Lexa smiled up at her and ran a hand through Clarke’s hair.Clarke shook her head a little, “No. I wanna do it.”Lexa threaded her fingers through Clarke’s hair again, “You know … as their teacha you don’t need to do a chore on top of that … And if you insist on doing a chore … you could choose a different chore for yourself … so you can sleep in … I know you don’t like to wake up early …”Clarke shook her head again, “Breakfast is my thing.”Lexa nodded a little and looked at her, that look that was a question.Clarke sighed, smiling and said, “I … just … wanna feed your kids okay …”Lexa smiled at her, “Our kids.”Clarke grinned.“You … could help with dinner instead …,” Lexa offered.Clarke chewed her lip a little, “I’m … not the best cook … breakfast is kinda all I can handle …”Lexa pressed her lips together in a straight line … didn’t argue.They got dressed and Lexa opened the door to the sunny day outside, went to get wood from the woodpile for the fireplace while Clarke got out 10 bowls and spoons and a big pot, filled the pot with water from one of the big jugs in the house while Lexa got the fire started in the fireplace. She set the metal handle of the pot on the hook over the fire to boil. Laid out the bowls and spoons on the two tables that had been pushed together end to end in her little house so that all 10 people all had a place to sit around it in all the chairs.And … it was kinda nice honestly, not having the natblidas’ 7 beds taking up the vast majority of her living room floor.Plus she and Lexa could be as loud as they wanted to be now …She watched Lexa laying out rabbit jerky on plates for everyone, which was apparently part of breakfast now.And as she looked around, she noticed that the house was spotless. The formerly dusty windows were now crystal clear and sparkly clean. Not a speck of dust on any surface. Even the fireplace looked like it had been cleaned. A broom was leaned against a wall.Clarke grabbed a sack of dried corn kernels from off the counter and poured it into the pot to rehydrate them for the porridge and then turned to Lexa.“Did the kids clean the house too?”Lexa shook her head, “I did … while I was their prisoner here.”Clarke couldn’t help but grin at the idea of Lexa obsessively cleaning the place as she worried over how Clarke was doing with her trials.The house had probably never been so clean.Clarke wrapped her arms around Lexa’s waist, “It’s kind of a nice tradition … tying you up for me to come claim … Me getting to own you now.”Lexa smirked at her, “Well … you’ve tied me up plenty before … so of course you like it …”Clarke grinned.And then door burst open and their brood of kids marched in for their breakfast, summoned by the smoke coming from their chimney, all chatting and full of energy and ready for their breakfast and the day ahead. Took their seats around the table and started chewing on the rabbit jerky.Clarke got to work pulling the boiling pot of kernels out of the fireplace, laid some cloth over a big bowl and poured the puffy kernels into it, mashed the kernels into porridge and then lifted out the cloth, squeezed and strained it to remove the excess water and put the porridge back into the big pot to stay warm, grabbed a spoon and walked around the table doling out warm porridge into each of the kids’ bowls.Lexa pulled a big glass jar out from one of the cabinets, opened it up and popped a spoon into it. Took a seat at the table beside Clarke and said, “This is your second gift … our first crop of honey from the beehive.”Clarke eyed the big jar of amber, and then took Lexa’s hand and did a quick check of her arm, and then her other arm, looking for beestings. She had thought she had very thoroughly pressed soft kisses across the entirety of her houman the day and night before and hadn’t seen a scratch on her …“I’m fine …,” Lexa smiled at her, “I used smoke to calm the bees while I collected it.”Clarke nodded. Frowning. Still not thrilled that Lexa had been messing with the bees in her absence.“Just … try some …,” Lexa grinned, scooping a few generous spoonfuls onto Clarke’s porridge, and then onto her own porridge, and then handed the jar around for the kids to do the same.Clarke stirred the honey into her steaming porridge and took a tentative bite.Jesus christ … it was delicious …Worth infinite beestings.The honey made the porridge so sweet and tasty. Brought out the sweetness of the corn too.“A good addition to the porridge …,” Reva smirked at Clarke, stirring her bowl.Clarke looked at Lexa, who was humming into her bite and very clearly enjoying this new version of Clarke’s porridge.So … Reva’s taunt at the wrestling match about Lexa thinking that the porridge was too bland hadn’t been just a taunt ...But Clarke stuck out her tongue at Reva anyway and Reva chuckled back at her and took another grinning bite.All the kids were grinning into their bites. They clearly loved honeyed porridge. Asked for seconds for the first time ever.“Can we train in the meeting house?” Madi asked, “After our run? It’s all set up for it.”Lexa nodded.The kids all smiled, clearly so proud of the new home they had set up for themselves.Just like Clarke had been proud of her own little house that she had set up for herself and Madi and her houman.It was the only home Clarke had ever had that was truly hers. Her entire life, she had only ever had a room … A room on the Ark. A prison cell. A little tent when she’d landed on the ground with the 100. A room in the Ark again when it had been come to the ground. A tent when she’d been planning the attack on Mount Weather with Lexa, and then a room in Lexa’s tower.But now she had a full blown house that was hers.She was only 20 and she had her own house. Her own farm. A houman and 8 kids too. Nine with Aden.Though Clarke wondered how much of a kid Aden would be when he came to the valley, after however long it took for him to be able to come … and after having had the flame … having ruled the people in the bunker as Heda.And he was already 16, the oldest of the natblidas. An adult by Grounder standards.But having the kids around might bring out the kid in him. It had definitely brought out the kid in Lexa. When she was with Madi especially.They were so much alike.All the kids had things in common with Lexa, and she’d had the same upbringing as they’d had.But with Madi, the similarities ran deep, so many parts of their personalities overlapped. Madi was far less formal though … less stiff and proper … even now … even after having adopted so many of Lexa’s ways and mannerisms.But Lexa had adopted many things from Madi too. They still took walks together. Swam together in the lake. Skipped stones across the glassy surface together and talked. Played games together.And seeing them together, seeing Madi hanging out with the older version of herself, seeing Lexa hanging out with the younger version of herself who hadn’t had all those years of discipline and fighting and the burdens of leadership heaped onto her shoulders, Clarke could tell it was good for both of them. Gave Madi a role model she could see herself in, gave Lexa a version of the childhood she’d never had when they played together that chipped away at the baggage Lexa was undoubtedly still carrying.They seemed to have their own little silent language of knowing looks and little smiles just for each other. Just like Madi had with Clarke.As everyone finished up their porridge, Clarke asked, “Is it okay if I come to training? Not the running part … after … And … just to watch …”Lexa smiled at her, “Of course you’re welcome.”“A pity to waste the opportunity to train though …,” Reva grinned at her, “You have potential.”Clarke grinned back at her, “Maybe someone could talk me into it … someday.”The kids got up to go for their run and Lexa gave Clarke a kiss on the cheek, said, “Save the water from the porridge please … It’s what we use to make oil … We’re gonna get the lanterns working next …,” and then led their brood out the door without any further explanation.Clarke couldn’t imagine how the cloudy water from the strained porridge became oil … but clearly Lexa had figured it out somehow, just as Lexa had figured out so many other things on the farm. And … it would be cool if they could get Louwoda Kliron Kru’s lanterns working again.She washed the dishes and made the bed. Went and split firewood from the woodpile as she waited for the kids to return from their run. Fed the chickens and checked out the garden. Saw that Penn had already planted the oniony bulb transplants from the marsh that morning.Saw her family run back into the village panting and sweaty.“Meeting house …,” Lexa clapped her hands, after giving the kids maybe 45 seconds to recover.Clarke followed them in and pulled a chair over to the training mats in the back to watch.“Staffs today …,” Lexa announced and the kids each went over to pick up their staffs leaning again the wall, staffs cut to different length for the size of each kid. Even Otan and Tris had little staffs.“You sure you don’t want to join?” Lexa looked at Clarke, “We have a staff for Aden that you can use.”Clarke shook her head.Maybe someday.Maybe Lexa could give her a private lesson so she didn’t embarrass herself too badly in front of the kids.Lexa stood in the center of the mat and demonstrated the stances and swings she wanted them to use. Had them practice different strikes and handholds with their staffs, first on their own, then paired them up with partners and had them spread out on the mats to practice against one another. Walked around pointing out adjustments to make to their form.The kids wielded their staffs like they were extensions of themselves. Were clearly comfortable using them. The little ones were less coordinated of course, but they weren’t helpless. Had the same determined looks on their faces as the older kids as their staffs thwacked against each others’. Madi was paired up with Callie, but even with a four year age difference and a shorter staff, Callie was more than holding her own. Was … winning as far as Clarke could tell. Lightly tapped her staff against the side of Madi’s shoulder, against the side of her knee, against Madi’s side to show her where she was exposed. Was … teaching Madi … giving her advice. And Madi did what she said. Didn’t seem ashamed or embarrassed to be taking advice from a 6 year old. But clearly Callie wasn’t a normal 6 year old. She spun her staff over her shoulder and caught it under her arm and wielded it like a pro … Had clearly had training already. Madi had a strength advantage but Callie was more experienced, and also a smaller and fast on her feet target.Clarke watched her warrior children practice their strikes for what must have been a half hour, until they were all sweaty and breathing heavy.Lexa clapped her hands again and they all stopped, stood up straight and faced her.“Now a match … Who will face me?” Lexa looked out at them.Four hands shot up. All the older kids. Except for Madi.Lexa spun her staff around and walked to the center of the mat, said, “Come.”The 3 littlest kids took a seat on the ground a ways away from the mat, and Madi took a seat on Clarke’s lap in the chair.Clarke wrapped her arms around her as they watched the 4 oldest natblidas step onto the mat with Lexa.“You don’t wanna?” Clarke said quietly.Madi shook her head a little, watching Lexa, “Not ready for a real match yet. Maybe in like … a year … or two.”Lexa stood in the center of the mat, and the 4 kids at the corners of an invisible square around her, just out of reach of Lexa’s staff. Lexa whirled her staff around her body, her face shifting into her steely Heda expression and growled, “Come.”And then all the kids attacked at once. Whirling their staffs at Lexa’s head, at her legs, at her sides.Clarke stopped breathing. This wasn’t sparring. The kids were fully going in for the kill. Growling and grunting as Lexa fought off strike after strike.Not Lexa though.She was ducking and spinning and tapping their sides and knees and even the sides of their necks lightly with her staff before whirling away. Was still teaching them lessons Clarke realized, as the meeting hall filled with the dull thwacks of wood against wood.It had been years since she’d seen Lexa fight, but Lexa was just as graceful and fierce as she remembered. Even without the flame. Lexa was so in her element, moved so fluidly … It was like watching a ballet.And the kids’ attacks … they were coordinated Clarke realized. They were fighting Lexa as a unit, one attacker opening up spots for the others to swing at. Staying out of each other’s way.Lexa seemed to have some sort of sixth sense for when a staff was swinging at her. Whirled around and caught staffs with one hand, swirled her staff with the other against a different opponent behind her to keep them away. Crouched down and whirled her staff around to make them all jump.As Clarke watched, barely breathing, she could hardly fathom how Lexa was managing to fend off so many attacks at once while delivering only light taps in return to show them their mistakes.The match went on and on. Twenty minutes must have passed. Then thirty.And eventually Lexa started sweeping their legs out from under them.Her educational taps getting a little more firm … Her expression getting a little more steely.Xander stepped off the mat, panting. Madi held out a hand and he gave it a slap and then sat down in front of Clarke’s chair to watch, still trying to catch his breath, still watching the match.Clarke could see the beads of sweat running down the back of his neck.Amelia, Penn and Reva formed a snarling triangle around Lexa, flinging out their staffs at her, trying to knock her down, swinging for her head, her sides, her ankles and knees.Lexa started catching their staffs with her own, shoving them back, pulling them into the center of the triangle with her. Taking hostages that forced the other kids to stop swinging so she could catch her breath, and then pushed her hostage back out to them with a shove of her foot against their butt.Amelia stepped off the mat next, her face beet red, dripping with sweat, her mouth hanging open as she panted. The corners of her mouth curved with a smile.She gave Madi a little grin, and then sat next to Xander on the floor. Otan and Tris and Callie scooted over next to them on the floor too.Clarke watched with her 6 kids as Reva and Penn seemed to find a new gear, flinging out their staffs at Lexa as she dodged and shoved and kicked them back. With the smaller kids out of the way, only the oldest ones and Lexa left, everyone on the mat now had more room to maneuver, and the match definitely took a turn. Clarke could see Lexa’s strikes getting harder. Could see Penn and Reva land a few hard strikes too.Lexa’s foot hooked behind Reva’s knee and pulled her leg out from under her, the way Reva had done to Clarke countless times in the mud pit, and then Lexa’s staff slammed into Penn’s and they growled at each other, holding their staffs in both hands, trying to shove each other backwards.And then Penn let go with one hand and slapped Lexa clean across the face with loud smack and Lexa kicked him in the stomach, sending him flying back onto the mat, spun around in time to catch Reva’s staff and ripped it out of Reva’s grip and lunged forward, her shoulder landing in Reva’s stomach and hauled Reva up onto her shoulder.Lexa smacked Reva on the ass and grinned at the 6 kids, panted, “Last one standing.”She set Reva down on her feet and helped pull up Penn, who had still been laying on the ground panting.“Good work today …,” Lexa panted at the kids and wrapped an arm around Penn’s shoulder, “… especially Penn for getting that slap in.”Penn grinned with quiet pride at the compliment.Clarke sighed.All in all, the training had been pretty gentle … She was glad to see that the kids only tapped each other when practicing together. Was glad to see how careful Lexa was with them. But it was still weird to see her kids fighting like that … Was weird to see Penn grinning at having struck Lexa.But … they were natblidas … and … they all looked so happy … had clearly been having a blast.Lexa clapped her hands and announced, “Time to take a break … then chores … then meet back here for school.” The kids bounded away to lean their staffs against the back wall and went to get water.Clarke hauled herself up out of her chair and made her way over to a grinning Lexa.“Could you maybe not encourage them to hit you in the face?” Clarke sighed.Lexa smirked, “Only my face?”Clarke put her hand lightly under Lexa’s jaw, eyes inspecting the red mark from the slap, “I assume I only get to choose one part of you to be spared … so …”Lexa chuckled.“And … maybe don’t fight all of them at once just to show off for me?” Clarke arched an eyebrow at her.Lexa grinned, “This is my training too. And I need a suitable challenge.”“Yeah … whatever …,” Clarke mumbled and tugged Lexa close, leaned in and kissed her … because as much as she disliked fighting … watching Lexa fight was … kinda … a different thing …“So … you don’t want to take me back to the house …,” Lexa said quietly against her lips, “… because their chores will take them at least an hour … and … I’m already sweaty …”Clarke growled a little and grabbed Lexa’s hand, led her back to the house.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

A little over a month later, they got the call from Aden over the radio.It was time.Time for Clarke to drive Lexa to the bunker and take the flame from Aden.Time for them to go to Bekka’s compound so Lexa could reprogram the City of Light with Bekka in her head, and use the chip maker to make new chips. Chips that would meet the requirements that the people in the bunker had requested as a precondition of taking the chips and letting their minds go to the City of Light while their bodies lived out their earthly existence in the bunker.It was perhaps the last thing Lexa would ever do for her people … Well, the last thing she would do for her people in the bunker anyway …She would spend the rest of her life doing things for her people on the ground, her family, her natblidas.She would give them every comfort she could. Would give them her time and effort and good ideas and love and the best lives she possibly could in the valley. Would work for the valley too … to help it grow and prosper. Would tend to the animals and plants to help them thrive so that hopefully, the valley would expand … And maybe someday, Nature would reclaim the earth.When she had the flame back in her head, she would ask it how to help the valley grow. How she could use the resources she had seen in the valley to give her family the best lives she could. Would ask it how to make things, how to build things that would be useful to them out of the resources they had.She would ask the first commanders who had lived on radiation scorched earth for the details of how they had laid the foundation for the forests that Lexa had known in her own lifetime on the ground to return. How they had helped the pockets of nature that remained after the first praimfaya grow and expand …In the first praimfaya, it had mostly been the cities that had been destroyed by the bombs.This time, the destruction was far greater.And Lexa would learn all she could from the early commanders while she had the flame at Bekka’s house about how to help the valley flourish.Clarke was not looking forward to going back to the bunker. To Lexa taking the flame again.Clarke hadn’t needed to even say it. Just the look she had given Lexa when they’d gotten the call from Aden had said it all.But Clarke had reached over and squeezed Lexa’s hand as they’d sat by the radio listening to Aden, as if to punctuate her thoughts on the matter.Lexa could understand Clarke’s displeasure at having to go back to the bunker, at her taking the flame again.Even just temporarily.There was definitely a part of Lexa that didn’t want to go back to the bunker and take the flame either.But she had to see this through.A lifetime of conditioning to put her people first could not be undone by 6 months in the valley. Even by 6 months of perfect happiness.She would do this for Aden, for Indra and Trikru, for Gaia and Clarke’s people, for all those 1,199 souls who had put their faith in her and followed her into that bunker and into an unknown future.Clarke made her carry guns and knives before they left for the bunker.Stuffed them into Lexa’s pockets like they were good luck charms, even though they would only be going into the bunker as far as the decontamination chamber, where they would meet Gaia and Aden and the flame would be transferred to Lexa’s neck in secret, so no one in the bunker would know that Aden didn’t have the flame and attempt a power grab.Perhaps that wasn’t likely.What was there to gain?The role of being the one who got to hand out the chips? Or perhaps some lunatic might want to lord over who got to receive a chip when, or even destroy the chips and doom everyone to only their corporeal existence. Or perhaps one clan would want to be the only one who got to take the chips …You could never be to careful when it came to power grabs … even illogical ones that didn’t make any sense.And the flame would have told Aden to take such precautions.One part of those precautions was that on the day of the transfer of the flame, Clarke and Lexa had had to get up well before sunrise to drive to the bunker.The kids had gotten up too, even though it was still pitch black out, and hugged them goodbye.They all hugged now.All the time.Not just when someone might be leaving for the last time, perhaps never to be seen again, or had returned from such a journey.Hugs.Frequent hugs for any occasion.That was one of their new kru’s traditions.It was something Clarke did.Something from Skykru’s traditions.And from what Lexa had seen of Skykru’s traditions, frequent hugs was one of their very best traditions.One worthy of being adopted by Kliron Kru.After the hugs were done, Clarke and Lexa double and then triple checked to make sure that the kids would have everything they needed during their time away, after they’d confirmed and then re-confirmed with Reva and Penn that they were up to the task of managing things while they were gone. And then Clarke and Lexa made their way out through the darkness to the rover with a flashlight and their pockets full of guns and knives.Clarke pulled Lexa into a long hug before the got in though.“It’s gonna be okay …,” Lexa squeezed her arms around Clarke, “Just a few more steps and it’s done.”“You don’t know if it’s gonna be okay …,” Clarke mumbled against Lexa’s shoulder and squeezed her tight again, “When has anything ever been easy for us?”Lexa leaned back and grinned at her, “I believe our luck has taken a significant turn for the better these days …”Clarke nodded.Lexa smiled to herself and hugged Clarke tight again.Even Clarke could not disagree with that.They were living in a perfect paradise with their youngens. A kind of life so filled with love and happiness and safety that Lexa would’ve never imagined that such a life could be hers … theirs … even in her wildest dreams …Lexa could understand Clarke’s worry though.The valley was safe.Certain.Leaving the valley and going to the bunker meant risks.Uncertainty.And fate had been particularly cruel to them in the past …Positioning them as adversaries when Clarke’s people had first landed on the ground.Finn.Mount Weather.Lexa being shot.Pike and so many of the rest of Clarke’s people being so foolish.Lexa’s people antagonizing Skykru.Having to deal with ALIE as she turned their people into soulless monsters.Putting them through a nuclear apocalypse.Separating them for years after that apocalypse.Putting Clarke in space in the first place so that Lexa couldn’t find her houman more easily.But their luck had most definitely taken a turn.Clarke let her go with a sigh and they got into the rover.Made the call to Aden over the radio that they were on their way.Made the drive through the dark desert with the headlights of the rover lighting up the sand dunes.It was still dark when they pulled up to the bunker. When they radioed Aden that they had arrived.And when they got out of the rover, Clarke pulled Lexa into another hug.“It’s just the flame Clarke … same as before … Nothing to be scared of …,” Lexa hugged her back.Clarke leaned back and looked at her, “You’re my houman now. Don’t forget that. Tell the flame too.”Lexa grinned at her and clicked on the flashlight, pointed it at the entrance to the tunnel and walked Clarke to it, hand in hand.Lexa let her hand trail against the stone walls she had bashed her way through all those months ago … what felt like a lifetime ago …She had changed so much from the person she’d been back then ...So weary from life underground.Thinking Clarke was gone forever.Thinking that the rest of her life would be devoted to keeping the people in the bunker alive as Heda. And then keeping them alive on the scorched earth of the ground after that ... Likely living just above the bunker and still reliant in the terrible food from the farm.And now she wasn’t Heda. Lived on a totally different farm in a perfect paradise with her houman and youngens.Was so much more herself.Felt safer and more relaxed than she could ever remember feeling in her whole life.Slept so peacefully at night. Felt so safe when she slept by Clarke’s side that she hadn’t even startled awake when her youngens had snuck into their bedroom and tied her up and kidnapped Clarke for her trials.Lexa grinned over the fact that Clarke was her houman now, in all but the bonding ceremony, as they walked through the fleimkepas’ chamber and pulled open the bunker’s hatch. As they completed the decontamination procedures, which Lexa still knew by heart. Would likely know by heart for the rest of her life.When they’d finished decon Lexa knocked on the big metal door and it swung open. Aden breezed in with Gaia who pulled the door shut behind them.Aden pulled Lexa into a hug and Lexa hugged him tight, and then lifted him up off the floor a bit in her tight embrace.“Still strong I see …,” Aden chuckled, “You have not gotten weak and lazy in your time away.”“Not yet …,” Lexa grinned at him.Lexa gripped Gaia’s forearm and greeted her.“The first commander will save us again it appears …,” Gaia smiled.Lexa knew that this was the line Aden had used to help talk many of their people into taking the chip. That both the flame and the chip were from Bekka Praimheda.That their ancestors had survived the first praimfaya with Bekka’s dark blood and the flame, and that Bekka would save their minds from enduring this second praimfaya as well.Skykru had needed a more sophisticated explanation of course. A tek explanation that Bekka had been able to provide through Aden. But Marcus had also taken on much of the convincing of Skykru. He had been to the City of Light himself, briefly, had taken the chip the first time through coercion. But despite his experience with ALIE, Marcus had been reasonable. Could see that a different version of the City of Light had potential as a solution for the bunker peoples’ current predicament. And as the leader of Skykru in the bunker, and the moral compass for his people, someone who was widely respected and well liked, his opinions carried influence.Aden had even been trusting Marcus to have supervised visits with Abby in lockup.And Marcus was principled enough to be disappointed with Abby over her attempt to steal a natblida’s bone marrow when Aden had explained that her method would have been deadly.Honestly, if all the clans had been led by people like Marcus, Lexa’s time as Heda would have been entirely different.Aden greeted Clarke and offered her grinning congratulations for passing her trials.Clarke smiled at him, “Hopefully we’re almost to the end of trials … all of us.”Aden nodded, “Almost there.”And then he pulled Clarke into a hug, whispered something in her ear that Lexa couldn’t hear.Clarke leaned back and looked at him, gave him a watery smile and said, “Thank you.”More congratulations on being her houman, Lexa thought.“Are you ready Lexa?” Aden turned to her.Lexa nodded and Clarke squeezed her hand.And then Lexa and Aden got down on their knees in the decontamination room and Gaia pulled down the collars of Aden and Lexa’s leather jackets, pushed the hair away from the backs of their necks so that both the infinity symbols tattooed there were visible.Gaia produced a metal kit from her robes and pulled out a little disinfectant wipe package that was most definitely from Skykru and swiped it over the backs of their necks. Pulled out a scalpel and slid it carefully through the center of the infinity tattoo on the back of Aden’s neck, and then Aden said the passphrase.Clarke watched with wide eyes as a little clear chip not so different from ALIE’s chip crawled out of the back of Aden’s neck on spindly little fiberoptic legs.Gaia took it gently in her fingers and then  made an incision through Lexa’s infinity tattoo and let the flame crawl inside.Then Gaia produced a suture kit from her robes and she and Clarke got to work stitching up the backs of their necks.“She will be tired …,” Gaia said as she stitched the back of Aden’s neck, shoulder to shoulder with Clarke, “She will need a few hours rest most likely.”Clarke nodded but didn’t say anything.She hated this shit.Hated that Lexa was now a tool for her people yet again.Hated that Lexa had to have this thing in her head for them.But she focused on giving Lexa perfect stitches instead of saying a word.Because this was Lexa’s choice.And what Lexa was doing was important.Logical.Would save almost 1,200 people from lives of suffering. Would give them immortality.And … Clarke suspected that it would also help Lexa deal with her guilt over the mistake they had made in not letting ALIE take everyone to the City of Light before praimfaya.She had only talked to Lexa about that once, but she knew that that was the kind of burden that would weigh so heavily on Lexa. For the rest of her life.So Clarke had resolved that she was not going to debate Lexa on this choice or give her a hard time about it.She was just gonna be there for her houman.Take care of her.Love her.Help Lexa get through this and do what she needed to do to give herself some peace and closure on the matter.Be proud of Lexa’s nobility now as she had been countless times before.Even if she was worried about Lexa taking the flame again. About what it might do to Lexa’s brain to have it in her head again. About what it would feel like for Lexa to have to carry the flame after so long without it, after so many months of peace and happiness without those voices in her head.They snipped off the excess thread of the stitches and Clarke and Gaia helped Lexa and Aden onto their feet.“Good luck Lexa …,” Aden said and gripped Lexa’s forearm.Lexa gripped his in return but didn’t say anything.Aden looked at Clarke, “It will take her a little while to adjust … but she will be okay.”Clarke nodded and Lexa put her arm around Clarke’s shoulders.And Clarke wasn’t sure if it was to steady herself or for comfort.Maybe both.Aden flipped up the collar of his coat and said, “Call when you are on your way back from Bekka’s.”Said it with the same official tone as if he still had the flame in his head.Clarke nodded and watched Aden and Gaia step out of the decon chamber and close the metal door behind them.And yeah … as they walked up the steps to the bunker hatch, she could feel that Lexa was a little woozy. Her steps a little unsteady.Clarke sat Lexa down in the flamekeepers’ chamber and closed the bunker hatch. Slung Lexa’s arm over her shoulder, led her through the tunnel and up to the surface, gripping Lexa’s side with one hand, holding the flashlight in the other. Loaded Lexa into the rover and buckled her in. Started the 4 hour drive to Becca’s place.Lexa was sitting sideways in the passenger seat, facing the window as the sun started to rise. Maybe she was sleeping. Maybe she was meditating. Maybe she was just silently adjusting to what it felt like to have the flame again.Maybe all of the above.Clarke couldn’t be sure.She kept glancing over at her as she drove. Trying to resist the urge to ask Lexa if she was okay for like the 50th time.Of course Lexa wasn’t okay.Clarke had seen the real Lexa now. Lexa without the flame. Lexa at peace, relaxed, able to feel her feelings fully, without the flame in her head forcing her to constantly worry about her people.And Clarke wanted the flame back out of Lexa’s head as fast as humanly possible.As soon as Lexa finished reprogramming the City of Light with Becca’s help, as soon as they’d finished making the new chips for the people in the bunker, Clarke wanted the flame out of Lexa’s head.It was not lost on her that Lexa might try to refuse to give the flame back to Aden when they returned to the bunker with the new chips. That Lexa might insist on giving out the chips to the people in the bunker herself to keep Aden safe.Aden had whispered in her ear that he had taken steps to ensure that Lexa would give it back to him when they returned.Which was a huge comfort to Clarke.But if something happened to Aden while they were at Becca’s, Lexa would definitely keep it in and stay in the bunker until the people there had taken the new version of the chips.The sooner the flame was out of Lexa’s head, the sooner she could have her houman back, safe and sound for their future together in the valley.When they arrived at Becca’s house, Clarke cut the engine and went right around to the passenger door to help Lexa out.Lexa put an arm over Clarke’s shoulder and Clarke pushed the rover door shut behind them.“I’m taking you straight to bed ok?” Clarke said quietly, walking Lexa to the door of Becca’s house.“The couch is fine …,” Lexa murmured, “There are blankets in the footstool.”Clarke looked at her, “How do you …”“Bekka …,” Lexa said quietly, “This is her house. So … I know …”Clarke nodded a little, stepped Lexa through the door.“And … I know you are anxious to get back … to get this over with …,” Lexa said as Clarke laid her down on the couch, “… but this is going to take a while … several days … at least.”Clarke sat down on the couch bedside her, ran her fingers through Lexa’s hair, “I’m just anxious to have you back …”Lexa looked up at her, “I’m right here … I’m still me.”Clarke nodded a little, and then leaned down over her, rested her forehead lightly against Lexa’s and said quietly, “I know.”“I just … also know where the blankets are …,” Lexa said with a little grin.Clarke smirked and got up, went over to the footstool … and yeah … the big cushion could be pulled off … had … a compartment underneath it where there were pillows and blankets.She grabbed one of each and slipped the pillow under Lexa’s head, tucked the blanket in around her.“This couch is nice …,” Lexa sighed, “It is made for naps.”Clarke chuckled down at her, “Yeah. The whole compound is amazing. The lab too. Please thank Becca for me … this place saved me more than once.”Lexa nodded, then said quietly, “She says you are welcome … She says … mi casa, su casa …”Clarke grinned.Lexa’s forehead furrowed, “And … she says … there is a lot here … that we should take … to the valley …”Clarke nodded, “I’ve taken some stuff already … from one of the pantries … and some stuff from the lab … and … I stole some of her sheets …”Lexa gave her a little grin, “Yes … the sheets are quite nice.”“I … kinda felt like I got to know Becca a little while I was here … healing from the radiation …,” Clarke added, “It sounds crazy I guess … but … this place … the way it’s set up … it says a lot about her. And … it’s so beautiful … and … homey … for a fortress. It’s the most beautiful home I’ve ever been in … besides your place in Polis …”Lexa smiled at the memory of Clarke in the tower, long ago …Clarke had never actually said that she liked it there … When Clarke had first  arrived, she’d been too pissed about being kidnapped to say much of anything to Lexa besides threats and insults.Lexa had hoped Clarke would like it though … would find the room Lexa had given her beautiful and comfortable and cozy.And the confirmation that Clarke had found it so … even though that confirmation was coming years later stillwarmed Lexa’s heart.“… and … we’ve got her nightblood …,” Clarke added, “… and you’ve had the flame she made for so long … makes me feel closer to her too.”“Yes … we are … a sort of family … Bekka has been a close mentor to me … and … a friend …,” Lexa closed her eyes, her eyes moving back and forth behind her eyelids, “She says … the house … the lab … they are ours now … a … wedding present … She says we should take whatever we like … She will show us things to take … And … she says … we should … think of this visit as … our honeymoon.”Clarke laughed, “I think the honeymoon is supposed to come after the wedding.”Lexa grinned and opened her eyes, “I … think it is safe to say that we are not a typical couple … We have done things our own way.”Clarke nodded at that and ran her fingers through Lexa’s hair again. That was certainly true. Their love story had way more war and bloodshed and apocalypses and near death experiences than any love story she’d ever heard.But it was still a love story nonetheless.The love story of two leaders.Two people from backgrounds that could not have been more different. Who met under terrible circumstances.And then fell so hard and so fast for each other despite those circumstances that it was just shocking … Fell for each other despite their vast differences that turned out to be nowhere near as vast as they’d first appeared.Clarke leaned down and kissed her, whispered against her lips, “It’s you and me. It’s always gonna be you and me.”Lexa grinned.“And now it’s you napping while I find us something to eat …,” Clarke added and gave her another little kiss, “You’ve already been through enough today, so no working … Today we just … rest.”Lexa hummed a little and pulled up her blanket, shut her eyes and mumbled, “You and me.” —- Lexa startled awake from her nap, sat bolt upright on the couch, her heart hammering in her chest, panted out, “Clarke!”In her dream … she’d been … on a battlefield … and … Clarke … Where was Clarke? She had to get back to her …Clarke was sitting beside her in a flash, holding her, saying, “It’s ok … You’re ok.”“I was …,” Lexa panted, and squeezed her arms around her, “I was … looking for you.”Clarke hugged her tighter, “I’m right here. I’m always gonna be right here.”After a little while, Clarke leaned back and looked at her carefully, ran her thumb across Lexa’s cheek and said gently, “Just a nightmare.”Lexa looked away.Pressed her fingers into the blanket under her hands to ground herself.Clarke was right. It had been a nightmare. But it wasn’t just a nightmare.It was a memory.Her worst memory.Leaving Clarke at the door of Mount Weather.Alone.The look on Clarke’s face when she’d left.Every detail.The sound of the dirt crunching under her boots as she’d turned and walked away.The panic she’d felt at the thought that maybe Clarke wouldn’t just leave Mount Weather like she should, but rather would go on some sort of suicide mission to get her friends back.Lexa had had that thought when she’d been walking away from Clarke at the Mountain.But she had dismissed it.Had told herself that Clarke was far too smart to do something like that.But then Lexa had found out afterwards that Clarke had done exactly that.Had gone into Mount Weather and somehow freed her people despite the  near certainty that she would die.She’d been incredibly lucky to make it out alive.Lexa could understand Clarke risking her life to save her people when it made sense. When there was a decent chance of success. Respected it. Had done it countless times herself.But … there were so many other memories flooding into her brain now too. Memories of all the times when Clarke had risked her life when it didn’t make sense.Like when Clarke had tried to take Finn’s place when he’d been tied to the post for execution after he’d massacred a Trikru village.Like when she’d found out that Clarke had left her people after Mount Weather to live alone in the woods … when Clarke knew that so many still held grudges against Skykru. Another suicide mission.And when Lexa had had Clarke brought to the tower, in their first real conversation after Lexa’s betrayal, and Clarke had flat out told Lexa to kill her and take her power.Which any other Heda would have done.And then, when she hadn’t, Clarke had tried to kill her. Had held a knife to Lexa’s throat. Another suicide mission.And then, when Lexa had been challenged by Nia, Clarke had gone to the Ice Queen and tried to kill her, risking her own life yet again.Lexa had thought all that recklessness from Clarke was over once they’d started to be together. Truly have a relationship.But then Clarke had done it again.Had gambled her life on Abby’s nightblood experiment when she’d been at Bekka’s lab with her mom and her friends.And then, just before praimfaya, while Lexa and her guards had been out fetching Gaia and Otan, the last and youngest natblida, to bring him safely to the bunker, Clarke and her friends had left the bunker to save Raven … who had decided for herself that she would rather take the rocket from Bekka’s lab and do a spacewalk than live in the bunker.Clarke had not wanted Lexa to leave the bunker to fetch Otan that day.And when she had, Clarke had apparently left soon after with her friends.Had left a message for Lexa, saying that they needed people with Raven’s skills. That even if they only had 10 people in the bunker Raven should be among them. In her message, Clarke had said that she and her friends had plenty of time to fetch Raven and get back before the radiation came.And it had seemed like they would have enough time.But they hadn’t.Clarke had told her over the radio from Bekka’s lab that they’d been attacked by bandits on their drive to the compound. Had been saved by Echo.And when they couldn’t get back in time, Clarke had stayed on the ground, gambling her life yet again.Clarke did not take such risks when Lexa was with her.Clarke made sane choices when Lexa was with her.But when Lexa was away from her … Clarke seemed to have … a self-destructive streak.And now, all those memories, the knowledge of all the times Clarke had needlessly risked her life were flooding back into Lexa’s brain.Every detail.Crystal clear.It … must have been the flame … putting all those thoughts in her head.Making her remember.“It’s not just a nightmare …,” Lexa said, picking up the thread of Clarke’s last words and glancing at her, “It’s a warning.”She tossed off the blanket, “I need to take a shower.”And then got up and walked away.“Hey wait …,” Clarke called after her, “Do you know where the …”But Lexa was already walking up the stairs to Becca’s room.Clarke followed after her anyway.Clearly something was wrong.God, she fucking hated the flame.Lexa had been absolutely fine before.Clarke marched up the stairs to find Becca’s bathroom door locked.She could hear the shower running.So Clarke just took a seat on the bed and waited.Meanwhile Lexa was leaned against the wall of the shower under the hot water. Her heart hammering in her chest.God.She was so angry.Furious.Furious at Clarke for risking her life so many times when she hadn’t needed to.She shouldn’t be so angry.Clarke hadn’t done anything wrong … recently.And … the flame should be dulling all those feelings anyway …She shouldn’t be able to feel anything this strongly.Lexa splashed some water on her face, covered herself in lather from a bar of soap. Tried to wash the feelings away.But she was still upset.More upset even.Lexa rinsed off and let out a heavy sigh.Turned off the water and stepped out of the shower.Pressed a spot on the wall and a hidden cabinet door popped open. She pulled out one of Bekka’s very pleasingly soft fluffy towels and dried herself off.Maybe this was just happening because the flame was still taking hold in her mind.She didn’t remember how long the process had taken the first time she’d taken the flame.At her ascension ceremony, when she was 12, she was pretty sure she had passed out as the visions of the past commanders had ripped through her mind … more vivid than dreams. More intricate than nightmares. She could feel each moment of their lives. Their deaths. Could hear their thoughts flooding into her brain. Could feel their words on the tip of her tongue. Could feel their weapons in her hands. Their clothes on her skin.And when she’d woken up, covered in sweat, she had recited the lineage in front of a room full of people and been totally fine. Like … a different person in many ways … like … many different people … but … she’d been fine. She remembered that clearly.But this time, it didn’t feel the same.And she certainly didn’t feel fine.Even though she’d had her post-ascension nap.She hung up the towel, opened the cabinet again and grabbed her favorite big fluffy bathrobe … or … Bekka’s favorite bathrobe … she had … several of them … but this one was her favorite ... Pulled it on.She pulled open a drawer and grabbed a hair tie, looped her long chestnut hair into a ponytail and shoved the drawer shut. Put her hands flat on the counter and looked at herself in the mirror. She … looked fine … normal.But her heart was still hammering in her chest from all the memories of Clarke’s recklessness.“Bekka … What is happening …,” Lexa sighed at her reflection.Her eyelids slid closed and Bekka started to answer.“She needs you … Save her …,” Bekka’s voice whispered in her mind.And then she heard Aden’s voice in her mind … telling her … what he and Bekka had done …Lexa’s eyelids slid open and she grumbled at herself in the mirror.She grabbed the door handle and yanked it open.And … there was Clarke.Sitting on the bed.Looking … worried.Clarke always worried so much about her … about everyone else, but never worried enough about herself.The anger flooded through Lexa again.Clarke should save her worry for herself.“I’m fine …,” Lexa grumbled, stomping past her and then pushed at the wood paneling around the base of the bed with her toe. A little hidden drawer popped open and she started pulling out sheets.“I don’t think you are fine …,” Clarke eyed her.Lexa yanked at the bedspread to pull it off the bed, but Clarke was still sitting on it.“Move,” Lexa grumbled.Clarke stood up, still eyeing her.“I’m just making the bed …,” Lexa sighed and yanked the bedspread off.Clarke stepped over to her, “Let me make it.”“No,” Lexa grumbled, “You don’t know where anything is …,” and then flung out the first sheet, snapped it over the bed and then started angrily tucking it in around the corners the mattress.Clarke watched Lexa grumbling to herself as she made the bed. As she laid the top sheet over the bottom one and tucked it in tightly around all sides, making everything perfectly straight. Tucking the sheet in with a weird military precision.Lexa toed open another hidden drawer on the other side of the bed and pulled out pillows, shoved them into pillow covers and tossed them carelessly at the top of the bed.Honestly, Clarke hadn’t even noticed those drawers along the sides of the bed before, when she’d stayed in this room during her recovery. Hidden compartments. Kinda like the one under the footstool in the living room where the blankets and pillows had been downstairs.Lexa laid out the bedspread carefully across the bed. Straightening everything meticulously again.Clarke folded her arms, “What’s going on.”Lexa went to the far wall and started futzing with the blinds.Clarke watched as Lexa closed them and opened them three times before deciding to just leave them shut.“Fire,” Lexa grumbled, and the fireplace on the wall instantly lit up. Filled the room with the warm glow of the dancing flames.Lexa turned around, turned right into Clarke, who was apparently standing right behind her.“Tell me what’s happening …,” Clarke looked her in the eye.Lexa looked back at her for a long moment, the little muscle at the corner of her jaw flexing.“Aden and Bekka have … put some sort of safeguard in place … in the flame,” Lexa grumbled.Clarke’s forehead furrowed, “What kind of safeguard?”“I can still feel all my feelings …,” Lexa grumbled.Clarke blinked at her, “Okay …”“I have all of my memories … in detail … and my feelings … about you …,” Lexa grumbled back at her, “All my feelings about you … They have done this to try and stop me from keeping the flame so that Aden can go to the valley while I hand out the chips in the bunker in his place. They believe I won’t do that if I can feel all of my feelings about you.”Clarke grinned, “And … that’s bad because …”Lexa’s forehead furrowed, “Not all of my you feelings are pleasant … when I can remember everything so clearly ….”Clarke nodded a little, looked at the floor, and then looked back up at her and gently took hold of the thick fluffy lapels of Lexa’s bathrobe, “So let’s talk about it.”Lexa sighed and looked away.And Clarke couldn’t help but notice how ridiculously appealing Lexa was in this fluffy bathrobe.Ponytails really suited Lexa too … really brought out her jawline … showed off the tan expanse of her neck …She shook her head a little.Focus Clarke.“Listen …,” Clarke started gently, “You’ve been through something today … I have food for you downstairs. I can bring it up for you. Or you can go back to sleep … with or without me here … Whatever you want.”Lexa nodded a little and wrapped her arms around Clarke’s waist, still looking away … looking at the fire maybe.“I’m so angry …,” Lexa sighed and closed her eyes, “Maybe I should eat something.”Clarke slipped out of Lexa’s arms, “Angry?”Lexa nodded.“You stay here. I’ll bring up food …,” Clarke looked back at her.Lexa nodded, still looking away, “You should eat here too. So I can get used to it … feeling all this … with you here …”Clarke nodded again … and then headed downstairs to warm up the canned stew she’d found in a pantry.She wasn’t sure if having an AI implanting itself in your brain counted as being sick, but she knew that when people were sick, they usually found a good stew comforting. And Lexa seemed like she could use some comforting … even though Lexa would never admit it.She heated up two bowls of stew in the microwave, taste tested it to make sure it was good, popped spoons into them and carried them up the steps to Becca’s room.Lexa was laid out on Becca’s bed, her back against a pillow propped up against the headboard, still in her bathrobe, more than a little of her long tan legs now exposed as they stretched out on the bed before her.Clarke focused on the soup, on carefully handing it over to Lexa and taking a seat beside her.Tried not to let herself get too distracted by the thought of Lexa lying in this bed beside her … in a bathrobe with nothing on under it … looking so appealing … or at least … tried to look at her soup while she had those thoughts … as she silently ate her soup.As they both ate their soup in silence.The entire bowl.And then Lexa set her empty bowl on the nightstand and slid lower to lie down fully on her back.Clarke put her bowl on her nightstand too and slid down beside her.Just looked at the side of Lexa’s face for a while from her pillow. Then said, “I can go if you wanna sleep … or be alone … It’s okay … really.”Lexa scooted close against Clarke’s side, slid her arm around her and pulled her in close, “No. It’s not okay.”Clarke nodded a little against Lexa’s chest, slipped her leg over Lexa’s middle.Put her arm over Lexa too.“I … don’t like it when you are away from me …,” Lexa said quietly, “… because I hod yu in … but … also because … sometimes … in the past … when you were away from me … you made some incredibly risky decisions … Decisions that had a very high chance of getting you killed … Put yourself in those situations when you didn’t have to …”Clarke huffed, “You’re telling me that …”“I take risks … It’s true …,” Lexa answered, “Carefully calculated risks … Not … reckless self sacrifice …”Clarke sat up a little and looked at her, “That’s all in the past. When would I ever be in those kinda situations now?”Lexa put her hand gently on Clarke’s cheek, “It matters Clarke. Even now. There are always risks in life. Even in our lives now. Choices to be made about risk … that must be carefully calculated.”Clarke looked down at her fingers futzing with the material of Lexa’s robe.“I trust you with everyone’s safety but your own …,” Lexa said quietly.Clarke sighed and laid her head down on Lexa’s chest, “Yeah …”Lexa squeezed her arm around her, “You cannot take such risks anymore. Never again. And not because of me … and not because of our youngens … but because you cannot do that to yourself. You cannot treat your own life as if it does not have value. To you.”Clarke sighed again, “I … did some things that … weren’t great … I know it. I was … kinda messed up … by a lot of things that happened … By you too … especially by you …”Lexa nodded, “I know that I’ve hurt you … It does not matter if I had to do those things because I was Heda … It was still me who broke our alliance … who fought in the challenge when you did not want me to … who left the bunker to get Gaia and Otan when you did not want me to … Even if I had good reasons … it still hurt you … But those are not acceptable reasons to take the kinds of risks that you have taken with your life.”Clarke’s hand slid up over Lexa’s side, and then gripped the puffy lapel of her bathrobe.“I think …,” Clarke said quietly, “I think you make me kinda crazy … Every time you leave … or … choose your people over me … or … risk your life for them … I just … kinda … lose it … ‘Cause I have zero control over you … And … I get angry …”“Those are my choices Clarke …,” Lexa said quietly, “If you’re going to be angry at anyone, you should be angry at me. Talk to me about it.”“Yeah well … I’m not very good at being angry at you …,” Clarke mumbled against Lexa’s chest, “Not since we started …,” Clarke sighed, “I can be angry at you when you’re gone … but … when I see you … I just … wanna make out with you …”Lexa chuckled.Clarke sat up a little and looked at her, “But that’s almost over … me having to share you with everyone else … with like …the rest of civilization … I’m done sharing you.”Lexa smiled at her.“And … I am getting better …,” Clarke looked at her, “Being in the valley … it’s … good for me … For my … damage … I don’t know how but … it’s kinda … healing for me to be there.”Lexa nodded, “I could see … when I first arrived … how relaxed you are there. I had never seen you so at peace.”Clarke nodded a little, “I never really got to just … be somewhere before … you know? Relax … someplace safe … without any distractions … and just … be myself. There’s always been so much to do … So much other stuff to worry about. But my worries are so small now …”Lexa nodded, “For me too. And … not having the flame for so many months … Remembering who I am without it.”Clarke smiled at her, “I think all the kids are remembering who they are … besides just natblidas. They’ve all got hobbies now ... practical hobbies … every one of them is so practical … but still … stuff they do because they like to do it …”Lexa smiled at her, “The valley is good for them.”“For us too …,” Clarke ran her hand through Lexa’s hair, “… for our relationship. We’re … getting better … with each other … being able to talk about stuff like this. We’re so lucky that we found each other. That we could see past everything else and really see each other.”Lexa gave a shallow nod, “It took you longer to see it I think …”“Yeah well … it was … confusing …,” Clarke sighed, “One day you’re coming to Arkadia with an army to wipe us out. And then … you’re like … helping me … coaching me … on how to do things … protecting me … And then I’m …”Lexa looked back at her silently.Clarke bit her lip.
God … even now …
Clarke sighed, “I’ve never fallen for someone like that before … You were … the last person I should be falling for … But you’re so …”Lexa grinned at her, her green eyes sparkling.“Yeah …,” Clarke looked back at her, kinda forgetting what she was saying.Lexa cleared her throat a little and said seriously, “Your people had valuable tek. It was good to keep you close.”Clarke frowned, and then grabbed her pillow and hit Lexa with it.Lexa chuckled.“And now?” Clarke arched an eyebrow at her.Lexa smiled, “And now you are Madi’s mother … so …”Clarke hit Lexa with the pillow again.“Why are you hitting me?” Lexa grinned, “We all get what we want from this arrangement …”Clarke hit her with the pillow again and grumbled, “I can’t believe I almost married you …”Lexa chuckled, “At least you know now … before it’s too late.”Clarke put the pillow back under her head and flopped down, put her arm and leg over Lexa and grumbled, “No. I’ve already done the trials. You’re stuck with me forever. That’s your punishment.”Lexa squeezed her arms around her and sighed, “It will be difficult … a loveless bonding … But Madi is worth it …”Clarke kicked her, “Shut up. That’s not funny. You love me.”“So charming …,” Lexa chuckled, “How could I resist?” —- When Clarke woke up from her nap, Lexa wasn’t in bed with her anymore. And she could see that it was already dark outside through the slats in the blinds.She made her way down the stairs in her socked feet.Could hear … music playing.She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and just stared at the sight of Lexa standing in the kitchen in front of steaming pots and pans, a spatula in her hand, her hair up in a ponytail, bopping her head a little to the beat of the music.There was a half empty glass of red wine on the counter and Lexa was … dressed up … wearing like … a tuxedo … under a cooking apron.The black jacket was draped over the back of one of the chairs next to the island counter.Plates, silverware, cloth napkins, another glass for wine and the bottle were already laid out.“What’s all this?” she grinned, stepping into the kitchen.Lexa set down the spatula, clicked off the burners and pulled off her apron. Stepped over to Clarke and looped her arms around her waist, gave her a little Lexa grin, “This is dinner.”“And this?” Clarke arched an eyebrow and tweaked Lexa’s black bowtie.Lexa glanced down at Clarke’s lips, “In case you’re still mad at me … for teasing you earlier.”
Oh right.
Clarke had already forgotten all about that.“You’re forgiven …,” Clarke smirked at her.Lexa’s grin arched a little higher and her hands slid over Clarke’s hips, started swaying them a little to the music.Clarke looped her arms around Lexa’s neck, “I’ve never seen you dance before … I didn’t know you could dance …”Lexa chuckled and pulled Clarke’s swaying hips a little more firmly against her own, “Perhaps we should have a … date … Get to know each other better … before we are bonded.”Clarke grinned at the idea, “Yeah … Maybe we should have a date before we get married.”Lexa lifted her chin a little, still swaying her hips, “It is customary … in some cultures.”Clarke chuckled, “Yeah … In mine as well.”Lexa nodded, stepped back a little and took Clarke’s hand, spun her around once and pulled Clarke back in, put a hand on Clarke’s lower back, the other hand out to one side, holding Clarke’s hand as they swayed.“I … have prepared a meal for you …,” Lexa looked at her, “And found wine. Is that how your people do it?”Clarke smirked, “Basically. We didn’t have wine … or food worth eating … More like having rations together in the mess hall.”Lexa pursed her lips, “Perhaps … we will do it the old world way then … before praimfaya …”Clarke looped her arms around Lexa’s neck again, still swaying with her, kinda loving how seriously Lexa was taking this.“What’s the old world way?” Clarke grinned.“We eat our meal …,” Lexa nodded at the stove, “We drink this wine …,” Lexa nodded at the wine, “We ask each other questions … And then …,” Lexa grinned, “We see what happens …”Clarke laughed.She knew exactly what was gonna happen.“And we can dance …,” Lexa smiled.Clarke was already getting the picture.Apparently, Lexa liked to dance.“Maybe I should change …,” Clarke smiled.Her clothes were clean. Her long sleeved t-shirt, her sweater and jeans. ‘Clean’ was the key factor that distinguished ‘nice’ clothes from not nice clothes in the valley.But they weren’t in the valley anymore.They were in Becca’s house.On a date.And Clarke felt more than a little underdressed with Lexa wearing a tux and all. The kind she had only ever seen in old movies on the Ark.But she’d seen some old romantic comedies on the Ark too. She could pull off a date.“Let me go raid Becca’s closet and see if I can find something …,” Clarke smiled.Lexa gave a shallow nod, “The guest room closets may have something you like as well … That is where I found this … Bekka’s friends stayed in this house sometimes … There were parties. Her lab employees came over for them too.”Clarke smiled at the thought of Becca having parties with her friends and coworkers in this house.It was certainly a great place for a party.This part of the building anyway … This far end of the main building of the compound where Becca’s house was a sort of self-contained unit.The rest of the building, the other parts that the other outside doors led to were a lot less homey … Was more … mansion-y … or … like a museum. Cold marble floors. High ceilings. Wide hallways. Cold white walls. Offices. A big open kitchen area with tables and chairs for lots of people to eat at. A huge open workspace with tables and chairs and tech stuff everywhere. The upper floors on that side of the house were all bedrooms … for the teams of employees who had been working on ALIE’s program she guessed. And for the scientists that must’ve worked in Becca’s lab.Clarke made her way up the stairs, took a quick shower, and then headed past Becca’s room to one of the guest rooms. She’d looked through everything in Becca’s house when she’d been recovering from the radiation there. Mentally catalogued everything that looked potentially useful for living in a post-apocalyptic world … but she hadn’t been looking for date attire …She slid one hanger after another out of the way as she looked through the clothes hanging in the guest closet, assessing each item, figuring out what she would wear on a nice date.There were fancy shoes on the floor of the closet … but they looked … kinda … uncomfortable …Maybe she’d try out some of the sandals.Or just skip shoes entirely … go barefoot.As for clothes … well, Clarke knew what she was gonna wear as soon as she saw it.A little black dress that was kinda stretchy, had lots of little rouched folds in the material when she pulled it on. It went only half way down her thighs, and had very thin straps that went over her bare shoulders.And when she looked at herself in the mirror … she looked … good … Really good.It wasn’t like anything she’d ever worn before … but it was flattering …Extremely form fitting.Hugged all her soft curves.And it was comfortable … mostly …A little too tight in the chest … Okay … maybe more than a little … She was right on the edge of spilling out of it. Those thin little straps over her shoulders were having to do a lot of work holding up the fabric across her cleavage … The soft curves of her breasts sort of bulged against the material that was … kinda scandalously low honestly … left the vast expanse of her tan chest exposed. But she was positive that Lexa was not going to mind …On the contrary …And it would be kinda fun to … torture Lexa … a little … after Lexa had teased her earlier … watch her struggle to maintain eye contact.She had to reach around behind her back to pull up the zipper, and could only get it up halfway … which seemed … kinda silly.Why design a dress that required another person to zip up all the way?How could a civilization with so much advanced tech not address that fundamental design flaw in clothing?She’d just have to ask Lexa for a little help when she went downstairs.Hope that the thin shoulder straps didn’t snap when it was zipped up all the way.She went to the guest bathroom and brushed her hair.She liked having it all wavy and short like this.It had grown out a little longer lately.Almost reached her shoulders.Maybe she’d keep it that length.Maybe just a little longer, easier to tie back without coming loose.Lexa wore braids for all her long hair, but not all the time anymore.And only a few braids on one side of her head.Not her elaborate Heda braids.Let the rest fall soft and loose.Tied it all up in a bun for training.Lexa’s new hairstyle was just as fetching as her old style.Symmetrical hairstyle.Asymmetrical hairstyle.It didn’t matter.Lexa was so ridiculously handsome all the time.No matter what she wore.No matter what kind of state she was in.Even when her hair was a disheveled mess when she was sleeping beside Clarke in the mornings.Even when she was sweaty and dirty from working in the corn field.Clarke would have loved Lexa no matter what she looked like.Her sharp mind.Her principles and fair-mindedness.Her work ethic.Her nobility.Her thoughtfulness and quiet ways and sense of humor and big heart under that tough exterior.All Lexa’s hidden depths.But she didn’t mind that all of those qualities were wrapped in such a lovely package.A somewhat less appealing package might have been preferable though …Less … distracting …Less for Clarke to have to compartmentalize … when they were supposed to be having a serious conversation about something.Make it … a little less easy for Lexa to do things like make Clarke forget about her grumpiness over being teased by just dressing up …But two could play at that game.And … she kinda wanted to throw Lexa off of her game a little.That was how dating worked right?It was like … a competition?Seduce your partner before they seduced you?The dress would be her first weapon.And her mind would be her second.All she had to do was to ask Lexa some questions on their date and casually seduce her.Before Lexa seduced her.She wondered what it would it have been like if they had met under normal circumstances.Gone on a date … in the old world … before praimfaya … when things were less dire and survival focused … like in those old romantic comedies.She decided that she wanted to find out.Wanted to see what a normal first date with Lexa would have been like …She thought about standard first date questions as she did one last check in the mirror.Mussed up her hair a little in that way she liked that made it look a little more wild.Made sure that the thin straps over her bare shoulders were still holding.Made a stop at Becca’s room to borrow some lacy black underwear for later.And headed down the stairs barefoot. —-  When she reached the bottom of the stairs, soft music was playing. Lexa had her tuxedo jacket on. Was sipping from her wine glass, looking out the floor to ceiling windows at the night sky filled with stars.The little pool outside was now lit up too by its underwater lights.Honestly, Clarke had kinda forgotten about that little pool. She had seen it years ago, when Murphy and Emori had been staying at the house while the rest of them had been working on the nightblood solution in the lab.When she’d stayed at the house during her recovery, she vaguely recalled that the little pool had been covered. Just like how all the windows had been covered with protective sheets of metal before she’d flicked the light switch on when she’d gotten to the house. But the cover over the little pool was gone now. And it was filled with water that looked sparkly clean. Maybe Lexa knew how to open it now that she had Becca back in her head.She wondered what Becca knew about first dates in the old world.She was about to find out …Clarke stepped over to Lexa’s side and held out a hand, said as straight-faced as possible, “Hello. I’m Clarke Griffin.”Lexa gave her a little smile, took Clarke’s hand and gently lifted it, pressed a soft kiss to the back of it, “It’s a pleasure to meet you Ms. Griffin.”“Clarke is fine …,” Clarke grinned at her and then arched an eyebrow, “And you are?”Lexa lifted her chin a little, her green eyes all sparkly at this little game, “Lexa kom Trikru.”Clarke nodded a little at this information, “Looks like our host isn’t coming.”“Becca says we should make ourselves at home,” Lexa smiled, “Are you from around here?”Clarke shook her head, “Space … originally.”Lexa nodded, “I’ve never been there. But it looks beautiful …”Clarke smirked, “It is … from far away. I needed a change of scenery though. What about you?”“I … recently moved from the capital …,” Lexa smiled, “Also for a change of scenery. But the view here is quite nice as well …”Clarke grinned back at her, making heavy eye contact with Lexa as she sipped her wine, “I couldn’t agree more …”Lexa straightened up her stance a little, “This may be a bit forward … but … would you like to have dinner with me Ms. Griffin?”Clarke grinned at the formality, “Maybe. But … could I get your help with something first?”Lexa gave a little nod and Clarke turned around, “Can you help zip me up?”She heard Lexa set down her glass. Felt Lexa lightly sweep her hair away from the back of her neck. Felt Lexa’s warm breaths tickling against her shoulder as her fingers gently trailed up the back of her dress, slowly sliding the zipper up all the way.“Better?” Lexa’s voice asked quietly, all low and seductive by her ear, resting her hand lightly on the side of Clarke’s hip.Huh …Maybe a dress with a zipper someone else had to zip up for you wasn’t a design flaw after all … maybe it was … better that way …Clarke turned around, “You tell me.”Lexa let her eyes trail down the dress, careful not to let her eyes linger anywhere for too long … to Clarke’s great disappointment.Lexa’s green eyes flicked up to meet hers, “Lovely.”And then she cleared her throat a little, “Would you like some wine … while you are considering my offer?”Clarke chuckled, “Yes. And I’ve decided to accept your offer.”Lexa nodded, “It is a lot to ask … since I am a stranger …”Clarke grinned, “You’re cooking smells pretty good … so … I’m willing to take a chance.”Lexa gave a polite nod of acknowledgment at the compliment and took her wine glass over to the counter. Filled her glass and the empty one next to one of the plates, handed it to Clarke “What shall we drink to?”Clarke smiled, “To good first dates.”Lexa clinked their glasses together and took a grinning sip.The wine was … nice … kinda fruity … a little bitter, but felt pretty warm going down. It tasted a helluva lot better than Monty’s moonshine …Clarke wasn’t 100% sure her tight dress would survive her sitting down on the couch, so she remained standing by the counter instead, like she was mingling at a dinner party, and asked, “So … What do you do Lexa kom Trikru?”“I am … was … a politician …,” Lexa answered, “I … recently retired to focus on … family matters …”Clarke grinned.“And yourself?” Lexa took another smiling sip.“I’m a teacher,” Clarke answered.It felt good to say it out loud. Her first truly chosen profession. Not conscripted Ark medical trainee. Not de facto leader of Skykru or the 100. Not ambassador.Teacher.She hadn’t needed to set up the kind of full on school she had for Madi over their years together, or the way they were doing it for the natblidas now, but she liked it. Had always been an excellent student herself. Wanted to give the kids the best education she possibly could to help with their cognitive development and give them lots of knowledge and interesting ideas to turn around in their minds.Lexa grinned, “A noble profession. Less messy than politics. I do a bit of teaching myself.”Clarke nodded, realizing just how much teaching Lexa had done. Teaching the natblidas to be Heda as they’d grown up. Training them in combat too. Even teaching Clarke how to be a leader when they’d first met. And then teaching Madi all those new skills in the valley.In another life, Lexa might have been a teacher too.If they’d taken classes together on the Ark, Clarke was pretty sure Lexa would have given her a run for her money for the top spot in their classes … instead of Clarke having zero competition year after year, with the exception of Wells in Botany and Monty in her programming class. She hadn’t been all that interested in programming … but Lexa seemed interested in just about everything.Was about to reprogram the City of Light with Becca’s help.“What do you do for fun Clarke? When you’re not teaching.” Lexa asked with a little smile.Clarke barely stopped herself from answering, ‘You’.“I draw …,” Clarke grinned back at her, “And … I’ve recently discovered a love of camping. Spending time in nature. You?”Lexa swirled her wine around in her glass a little, “I … used to do martial arts … all of the martial arts … but now just a few. And … I like to cook … so that charming women will have dinner with me …”Clarke laughed.
Smooth Lexa.
She decided that Lexa would do quite well dating in the pre-apocalyptic world.“I like music as well …,” Lexa added, “This music in particular.”Clarke nodded. The music playing was very nice. Perfect date music. Good background music for banter. For slow dancing in someone’s arms.“What’s it called?” Clarke asked.“The style is called bossa nova …,” Lexa answered, putting down her glass and held out a hand, “Would you like to?”Clarke put down her glass and walked with Lexa over to a little clear space on the floor, swayed along with Lexa, her hands politely on Lexa’s shoulders, as if they didn’t already know each other intimately, Lexa’s hands resting lightly on her hips.“I … like your laugh …,” Lexa said quietly as they swayed, “I think I could listen to it all day …”Clarke grinned, “I like your tux … It suits you.”And it truly did. The formality, all the angles bringing out Lexa’s nice angles.Lexa looked away, “The tie is … a bit … constricting.”Clarke reached over and pulled at one end of it to untie it. Let the black material hang loose and open on either side of Lexa’s neck.She unbuttoned the top button and met Lexa’s green eyes, “Better?”Lexa grinned, “You tell me …”Clarke smirked and let her fingers trail down to the second button, unbuttoned it, then let them slowly trail down to the third button.Hesitated there for a moment.Wait … was Lexa already winning this date?Clarke shook her head a little.Put her hands back on Lexa’s shoulders.“What is it?” Lexa looked at her, turning her around on their little dance floor and  swaying with her.Looking at her all sweet and concerned.“Nothing …,” Clarke smiled, and glanced down at Lexa’s lips, “Were you gonna … feed me?”Lexa grinned and took her hand, led her over to the tall chairs by the counter, took their plates and bowls, started loading them up with whatever it was that smelled so good from the pans simmering on the stove.Returned with glasses of water, two bowls of a green soup and plates full of something Clarke had never seen before. Took a seat beside her.“This is pea soup and mushroom risotto … from a packet …,” Lexa explained as she placed a napkin across her lap.Clarke did the same and took a bite of the concoction on her plate.Hummed at the taste.It tasted herby and good. The risotto was warm and filling like porridge. The little mushrooms had a nice chewy texture.They ate for a little while in silence and then Lexa looked at her and whispered, “Is this … acceptable date food? I … did not grow any of the ingredients myself. They only required water and heat.”Clarke grinned through her bite, reached over and squeezed Lexa’s knee, “You did great.”Lexa looked down at her plate and frowned, pushed some risotto around with her fork, “How are you to assess my suitability as a mate if I have only taken food from someone else’s home and added water to it?”“And heat …,” Clarke smirked, “Plus … you have to assess my suitability too you know … It’s not just about assessing you.”Lexa’s eyes locked with hers, and then flicked down to Clarke’s dress for just a fraction of a second.Clarke grinned.So … the dress was working on Lexa …And then a timer went off and Lexa got up, slid on oven mitts and pulled a whole loaf of steaming bread out of the oven in a metal pan.Clarke’s eyebrows raised.“It is only bread …,” Lexa said setting it down on the counter, “Experimental. A … type of sweet bread … hopefully. Made with only flour and salt, honey and oil … I … had to do a bit of guessing about how to make it with the ingredients available here ... but … it might work for dessert. Or breakfast.”Clarke blinked at her, “So … you just … invented a new kind of bread?”“Perhaps …,” Lexa pulled a knife out of a drawer and cut off a slice of it, blew the steam off it, and took a tentative little bite. After a moment, she handed the rest to Clarke.Clarke reached for it and took a bite.It was so good.Pillowy soft and sweet, and smelled amazing fresh out of the oven.It was the best bread she’d had in years.And if this was their real first date Clarke decided she would have shortlisted Lexa as wife material right then and there.The kind of person creative enough to figure out how to make delicious bread from limited ingredients, the kind of person who thinks ahead about breakfast, the kind of person who tastes it first to make sure its okay before handing over a piece.It was Lexa in a nutshell. Creative. Industrious. Smart. Considerate.Definite wife material.So Clarke skipped way down on her list of first date question.“How do you feel about kids Lexa kom Trikru?” and then popped the rest of the bite into her mouth, grinning at Lexa as she chewed.Lexa smiled, “I … am open to the possibility … How about you?”“I want a bunch of kids …,” Clarke grinned, “So many …”Lexa arched an eyebrow, “That is … a lot of responsibility …”“Well … I’m very responsible …,” Clarke smiled back, “And you know … with the right partner … it could be a lot of fun … being a parent.”Something flashed across Lexa’s face and she wordlessly put two slices of the bread on plates and set them out by each of their place settings. Took her seat next to Clarke again.But Clarke was still thinking about that flash of something on Lexa’s face, and suddenly wondered if maybe Lexa might not have actually wanted kids if she’d had a choice … if she hadn’t been Heda and had the responsibility of looking after the natblidas as part of her role. Lexa was such an awesome mom to their kids, that thought had never crossed Clarke’s mind.Maybe she’d only ever find that out in a situation like this one … where they were pretending to get to know each other as total strangers like this. Lexa so rarely complained about anything. And definitely wouldn’t complain about their kids … who Clarke knew Lexa loved and would do anything for. But … loving their kids and choosing to have kids were two different things.“You’re right. It is a big responsibility …,” Clarke added, “… a choice not everyone makes. For a long time, I wasn’t sure I wanted a kid.”Lexa glanced at her and stirred her soup, her eyes trained on the spoon, and then said quietly, “I do love youngens … but … being a parent is … not really something I was ever taught how to do … I would do my best for them of course … but I am sure I am lacking in many respects. I am … an orphan myself … and have spent very little time around families … because of … my work.”Clarke reached over and squeezed Lexa’s hand. She’d never thought about that. Lexa was such a natural with the kids. But she could understand Lexa feeling a little insecure about the idea of being a parent … Who was supposed to be her role model for that? Titus?He would be so far down Clarke’s list of acceptable parenting role models that that list would probably have to extend all the way into space for his name to even be on it …Clarke squeezed Lexa’s hand again and Lexa looked up at her.“I had a complicated relationship with my parents …,” Clarke looked back at her, “That’s probably why I wasn’t sure about having kids either. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be a good parent.”Lexa pressed her lips together, still looking at her, and then said quietly, “But you had parents … who loved you.”Clarke leaned in a little closer, her eyes dusting over Lexa’s expression, “Lexa … you have all the qualities a great parent needs. Every single one. There is no one I’d rather have kids with than you.”Lexa’s forehead furrowed, “But … you don’t even know me.”Clarke snorted out a laugh.Lexa grinned at her, “We haven’t even finished our first meal together …,” and then took a smug sip of her soup.And just like that … all the heaviness of their kids talk evaporated.But Clarke could see that the little bit of insecurity Lexa had shown about being qualified to be a parent was genuine … She’d almost never seen Lexa be insecure about anything in the entire time she’d known her. But if Lexa was gonna be insecure about anything … Clarke could easily imagine that parenting would be on that list … Even amazing parents were insecure about it. And Lexa was such an overachiever … had a ridiculous amount of training to do so many things … but certainly not parenting.Which only made it that much more remarkable what an excellent parent Lexa was.Still … Lexa was now definitely several points ahead in their first date competition … now that Clarke had basically offered to have kids with her only part way through dinner ...“Let’s just say I’ve got a good feeling about you …,” Clarke smirked back at her, “ … that you’d be an amazing parent. Even though we’re still getting to know each other.”Lexa gave her a little grin. Took another bite of her risotto.Clarke flipped through her mental list of first date questions and asked, “Are you religious?” Took a sip of her soup.Lexa cleared her throat, “Well … the religion of my people centers around the flame … which … I was raised to believe in … and … do believe in. But … have a slightly different perspective on ...”Clarke nodded at that. At yet another highly unusual part of Lexa’s background … She’d always thought of the flamekeepers as the religious ones … but of course Lexa, or the flame rather, was the object of their religion.“There are many aspects of the faith that I find quite beautiful …,” Lexa added, “Reincarnation. Meditation. Some of the rituals. It’s moral code of living honorably … which I have tried to adhere to. And do not always achieve … but aspire to.”Clarke smiled at her, “Reincarnation is a beautiful idea. I like it too.”“Are your people religious?” Lexa asked.Clarke shook her head, “Very few … but … I’m pretty sure I’m becoming a nature worshipper.”Lexa gave her a little grin, “Another beautiful religion.”And then Lexa frowned.“What is it?” Clarke asked.Lexa sighed, “We have done well … covered all the basics Bekka says. Career. Hobbies. Youngens. Religion. That leaves our political views and … talking about our exes … to show that we are … over them … and … are not dysfunctional partners with … hangups …”Clarke pursed her lips.Yeah … that was … pretty standard date talk … but … exes were a heavy topic for the two of them …Costia.Finn.Most people on first dates didn’t have exes who had been killed. In Lexa’s case, her ex had been tortured and beheaded by a political rival to get to her. In Clarke’s case, her ex had lost his mind and gone on a killing spree looking for her … and had paid for his crimes with his life … Had died by Clarke’s hand to spare him the pain of death by torture to satisfy Grounder justice.She had already broken up with him by then … for other reasons … but she’d still cared about him … the person he used to be anyway. In the time before his death, she’d barely been able to look at him after what he’d done, taking the lives of so many innocent villagers. But in his last moments on earth, she had told him she loved him and kissed him goodbye just before sliding the knife in to spare him the additional suffering of unrequited love.That had been the terminal end of their relationship in any form.And Lexa had been there. Had seen it happen. Had been the one who had given  her permission to say a final goodbye.Lexa had not dwelled on the matter that day. Had moved right on to the next order of business between their clans.But the next day, as they’d stood side by side at the funeral pyre of Finn and his victims, Lexa had told her about losing Costia. Had given Clarke advice about how to deal with her pain over Finn’s death and her role in it. Told her to see her pain for what it was … weakness … and that she needed to focus on the living.Clarke had hated that advice at the time.The heartlessness of it … following just moments after it had seemed like Lexa had been offering her empathy.And then Gustus had betrayed Lexa. And Clarke had seen the look on Lexa’s face in that one second after she’d killed him for his treachery.That moment of pain on Lexa’s face after she’d pulled her sword from Gustus’ chest … like she’d been kicked in the chest … like she could feel the blade sliding out of her own heart. And Clarke knew then that Gustus wasn’t just some bodyguard. Lexa had loved him. Truly did understand what she was going through.And then Lexa had looked directly at Clarke standing in the crowd of onlookers and steeled her expression into a hard mask, started barking out commands at everyone.Showed Clarke by example how to deal with grief.But that look on Lexa’s face when she’d pulled back her sword had still burned itself into Clarke’s brain.‘We’re the same.’It was the first time Clarke ever had ever had that thought about Lexa. The first of so many times she would have that thought in the time they would spend together on the ground.And as much as she’d hated Lexa’s advice at the time … she’d followed it … and it worked. Following it had been the only thing that had allowed her to focus on what needed to be done next and move forward … And as days had passed … she had come to see that her efforts to hide Finn from justice for his actions had been weakness on her part too. Getting involved with him in the first place had been weakness … She’d known he wasn’t right for her from the start … But he had been her only real friend on the ground at first. A close friend. Her only real ally in a disorienting and scary new world … and she had given in to his advances … to the comfort of it. Only to be disappointed by him the very next day in the most totally predictable way possible and immediately break up with him.Given what they’d both been through with their exes, Clarke figured the fact that she and Lexa hadn’t ever really talked about them since that day by the pyre was pretty understandable.But on the other hand … Costia had been important to Lexa … and the only thing Clarke knew about her was how she had died. Which seemed like a massive disservice to her memory. And during their time together, Lexa had never asked Clarke about her relationship with Finn either … Probably thought of him as just a murderer … since that was all she really knew about him. Was probably baffled by why Clarke had ever been with such a person in the first place. But those past experiences … the people they had cared about … were part of their histories … And the fact that they hadn’t ever really talked about them didn’t seem right given that they were headed toward a bonding ceremony.Clarke reached for the bottle of wine, filled both their glasses and said, “Let’s start with politics … If we get drunk enough we can talk about exes.”Lexa nodded, “A wise plan.”They each took a big gulp of wine and picked up their forks to start eating again.“So … do you … have a preferred system of governance?” Lexa asked lightly.Clarke smirked at her.Since they were from entirely different cultures, with entirely different political systems, that was probably to only way to ask the question … Not which party do you favor … since none of the clans were democracies like Arkadia had been as far as she could tell … The clans were more like monarchies … like Azgeda … Though … maybe Trikru counted as a theocracy … since their leaders weren’t someone’s direct descendants … and Trikru basically worshipped the flame … and nature … if they were nature worshippers in their laws and customs, as Lexa had once told her.One’s preferred  form of government was definitely the kind of question Lexa would have asked on a first date …But that totally banal first date question was pretty loaded as a ‘mate suitability’ question under these circumstances … when you were on a first date with an autocratic leader … who was the former leader of civilization …It was definitely a fair question though …The kind of question a couple should know each other’s answers to …Clarke took another big gulp of her wine, and cleared her throat a little, “Well … I … grew up in a democracy … Most of the space stations that formed the Ark came from democratic countries … except for China. And arguably Russia …”Lexa nodded, “Yes … a consolidated authoritarian regime … with a ruling oligarchy, subservient judiciary, loyalist security forces and a controlled media environment …”Clarke blinked at her.“Or … so I am told …,” Lexa smiled and took another bite of her risotto.Clarke nodded, “That’s … not so totally different from the Ark honestly. We had elections … like a democracy … but the leader’s party had a lot of control over everything that they could use to undermine the opposition … Hard to run for office if you’re floated for a minor crime … I don’t think it was an oligarchy … but there were definitely class differences … Since my dad was an engineer, and my mom was a doctor … and was on the council … we had nicer quarters to stay in. More food. The other kids called me princess … so …”Lexa nodded, listening carefully, took a sip of her wine.“My best friend was the chancellor’s son …,” Clarke looked at her, “We were both being groomed for leadership … in a way that … didn’t feel entirely democratic either …”Lexa nodded.Having definitely been groomed for leadership in a way that was not democratic herself.Clarke took a bite and glanced at Lexa, “I … think our parents wanted us to get married someday …”Lexa raised an eyebrow, sipped at her wine again, “Did you think you would marry him someday?”Clarke took a sip of her wine and looked back at her, “Maybe someday. He was my best friend … and … a great person … really great. Very smart and extremely kind … Got thrown in prison so he could come to the ground with me … Took the blame for my mom when my dad got floated so I wouldn’t hate her … but when we got to the ground … he got …”Lexa reached over and squeezed her hand, “It’s okay … you don’t have to talk about it …”Clarke shook her head, “I’m okay talking about it … I’ve had time to make peace with it …”Lexa nodded and said gently, “It appears we have waded into the dangerous waters of exes …”Clarke shook her head again, “Wells wasn’t my ex. And … looking back … I … didn’t really have those kinds of feelings for him. I loved him but … more like a brother. We had a lot in common.”Lexa nodded, and after a moment, said, “Costia and I had a great deal in common too. She was Trikru. A warrior like me …”Clarke gave her a soft smile, “I can’t say I’m surprised.”Lexa nodded back at her, “She was assigned to be one of my guards.”Clarke smirked, “You mean you assigned her …”Lexa shook her head, “She achieved the position herself. Did not even tell me she was seeking it. But she was more than qualified. Had distinguished herself in battle.”Clarke grinned, “Sounds like someone has a type.”Lexa shook her head, grinning, “I said she was a skilled warrior … not a strategist.”Clarke smiled and knudged Lexa’s knee, “How’d you meet?”“She had been one of Anya’s seconds too …,” Lexa answered, “Not that Anya approved … or … anyone approved …”“Commander is supposed to be alone …,” Clarke nodded, took a sip of her soup.Lexa glanced at her, “So I was told … especially after Titus finally figured out we were together … I was … never great at following that rule though … even before.”Clarke raised an eyebrow, “There were others … before Costia?”“Costia was the only real relationship …,” Lexa answered, “Not just … fun … A real relationship that lasted over a year …”Clarke sat back a little, “I … kinda thought I was the only one besides Costia …”Lexa looked at her, “She was the only one where serious feelings were involved … The only one that Titus ever knew about … But … I had 22 summers when we met Clarke … That is … a lot of summers …”Clarke pursed her lips at that …It … did make sense though …Lexa was … well … insanely hot … and quite good at flirting …Was kissing her just days after they’d met …And Lexa was a few years older than her … would have always been meeting new people … Would have had … plenty of … options. And the ground was … a lot more romantic than space …Lexa looked at her hesitantly, “Do … your people … only … date people that they are quite serious about?”Clarke laughed and shook her head, “No. Plenty of people ‘date’ very casually.”“Do you … date … casually?” Lexa looked at her.Clarke bit her lip, remembering that Finn wasn’t actually the last person she’d been with before Lexa. She took a sip of her wine, and then said, “I have. No dinners were involved though.”Lexa grinned, “So … you do not ask all of your dates how they feel about youngens then?”Clarke chuckled, “Definitely not.”Lexa nodded and sipped at her soup, looking pleased with herself.Clarke nudged Lexa’s knee, “And I’m guessing you didn’t ask all your … dates about their preferred system of governance?”Lexa grinned at her, “The topic did not come up. But they seemed quite satisfied with my approach to governing … As yours did as well I’m sure.”Clarke smirked at her, “No complaints.”Lexa swirled her wine in her glass and looked at her, “Am I the first woman you’ve dated?”Clarke shook her head.Lexa arched an eyebrow, “No?”Clarke shook her head again. Finished off her wine.Lexa finished her glass too.And Clarke got up, pulled another bottle out of the cabinet, opened it, and took a seat.Refilled both their glasses.“Are you trying to get me drunk Ms. Griffin?” Lexa grinned at her.Clarke nodded.There was some stuff Lexa didn’t know … and by her count, Lexa was several glasses of wine in already … had had two more than Clarke. And if they were gonna be getting to know each other better on this date … well … maybe wine would help it go down easier …Their plates now clean, bowls empty, she scooted her chair closer to Lexa’s, so they were knee to knee. Took a sip.“There was … a … coworker of mine …,” Clarke looked at her, “We were working on a … big project together … She was the first woman I kissed …”Lexa took a smiling sip.Clarke took a sip too, and then added, “But … after she left me … I was with a different woman … casually …”Lexa pursed her lips, and then drank her entire glass of wine, grumbled, “How unfortunate.”Clarke nodded and took a big drink of her wine too, then said, “I kinda had to know if it was just that one woman I had feelings for … or if it was … a general thing … about me.”Lexa started filling her glass again, “And … what did you learn?”“Well …,” Clarke took another sip, and then set down her glass, looked back at her, “I learned that it is a thing about me … But also … that it was still just that first woman …”Lexa frowned and looked down at her glass, “It’s good to know things about yourself …,” and then grumbled, “She sounds terrible though.”Clarke took another sip, “Yeah well … it’s risky … getting involved with coworkers.”Lexa let out a big sigh. Took another sip. And then stood up and held out a hand, “Can we?”Clarke took Lexa’s hand and slid off her chair, walked with her to the clear area of the floor, wrapped her arms around Lexa’s waist and swayed with her to the music, her head resting by Lexa’s neck. Breathing her in. Feeling warm and safe in Lexa’s arms, with Lexa’s hands on her lower back, with Lexa’s warmth against her chest, her heart feel all kinds of fluttery.After a long while, Lexa sighed, “I’m … sorry that happened to you.”“All’s fair in love and war I guess …” Clarke mumbled.Lexa’s arms squeezed around her, “I’ve heard that as well. But I’m not so sure …about the love part anyway …”Clarke leaned back and looked at her, “I am … When you find your person … it’s … kinda anything goes ...”“Maybe …,” Lexa hummed.Clarke raised an eyebrow, “Do you have hard limits on what you’d do for your person?”Lexa pressed her lips together, then said quietly, “In practice … it appears not. For love or war.”“Me too …,” Clarke looked back at her, “I dared her to kill me. Tried to kill her …”Lexa sighed, “You were angry.”Clarke shook her head, “That was only part of it. I … kinda had to know if she still cared … If she’d ever really cared.“Lexa nodded slowly, “A wounded heart can be like a wounded animal … Lashes out all the more fiercely. I … can understand it … people who have harmed my loved ones have died by my hand … so …”Lexa sighed, “It … doesn’t seem like we are doing a very good job talking about our past relationships in a way that doesn’t make us sound … crazy.”Clarke shrugged, “So maybe we are a little crazy … But maybe we’re crazy in the same way. Crazy people date too right?”Lexa smiled, “Did you … consider just kissing this woman … to see if she still cared?”Clarke glanced down at Lexa’s lips, “Maybe … but kisses can be deceiving.”Lexa hands softened against the small of Clarke’s back, and she said quietly, “I think there is nothing so honest as a kiss. They can say so much … Can say ‘I will take my regrets over hurting you with me to my grave’. Can say ‘If I had a flower for every time I thought of you after I left … I could have walked through those fields of flowers forever and never seen their end’. That after I hurt you, I sat in that field … surrounded by all those flowers … stretched from horizon to horizon … They can say … so many things that are impossible to say with words.”Clarke put her head back on Lexa’s shoulder as they swayed to the music and mumbled, “Maybe she should have said that … when I was holding that knife to her throat …”“It’s difficult to speak with a knife at one’s throat …,” Lexa answered, “Perhaps what she said with her silence was too quiet for you to hear …”Clarke leaned back a little and looked at her, “What did she say?”Lexa looked away, then looked back at her, “Kill me or kiss me. There can be no middle ground for us.”Clarke’s eyes locked with Lexa’s as her brain flashed back to that moment, her jaw working a little at the memory. Lexa standing in front of her, just as a close as she was now, but in her Heda uniform instead of a tux.She could still remember every detail of that moment. Could feel the knife clenched in her sweaty fist as she pressed the blade to Lexa’s throat. Could still feel the molten rage over Lexa’s betrayal boiling in her chest as the slow seconds had dragged by, as her eyes burned into Lexa’s, as Lexa had stood so still in front of her, not even stepping back … just … looking into her eyes, saying nothing for so long, and then whispered a barely audible ‘I’m sorry’ that was so quiet, but that somehow made the knife drop right out of her hand and clatter to the floor.And suddenly, Clarke was right back in that moment. Could feel that white hot anger she’d felt back then swirling in her chest again … At the fact that instead of scaring Lexa, she had only revealed even more of herself to her … that she still cared, that she couldn’t hurt her, even after everything. That she had revealed the darkest parts of herself too, her hurt, her anger. The parts of herself that anyone else would have averted their eyes from. Tried to talk her down from with reasons and good sense. But Lexa wasn’t afraid of her darkness. She hadn’t looked away. She looked straight back at Clarke’s rage and accepted it. Understood it in that way that no one else saw her and understood her and accepted her. Just like she always had. And in that moment, even the coiled snake of Clarke’s fury, fangs dripping with venom, ready to strike, had only wanted to curl itself around Lexa instead of bite.Clarke had never been so disgusted with her own weakness than she had been in that moment.That all it took was Lexa’s whispered ‘I’m sorry’ and she already wanted to forgive her. That her weak heart was pounding so hard from just standing close to Lexa again after months apart … even after everything. At the fact that even while she was pressing a knife to Lexa’s throat, she couldn’t stop herself from glancing down at Lexa’s lips. Several times.Even after everything, she’d still wanted to kiss her. To taste her. To feel Lexa’s lips welcoming her back, wanting her again.Even after Lexa had completely abandoned her, somehow she still had all the power.“I heard it …,” Clarke answered, almost growling out the words, still feeling the anger from the memory.Lexa looked back at her, her arms still around Clarke’s waist, even as they stood still, “But you did find a middle way … Killing me slowly with your glares … sharper than any blade … Jagged, shallow cuts that hurt all the more because the hand behind them was halfhearted …”Clarke just looked back at her.Maybe this would have been the moment when a different person would have apologized for all those death glares.But Clarke didn’t want to apologize.Not even now, years later.Those shallow, jagged cuts had been entirely intentional.She’d wanted to wound Lexa.And she had.That was part of the proof.When Lexa had tried to treat her like their kiss in the tent had never happened, treat her professionally in the tower, like she was just another ambassador, Clarke got her proof that Lexa still cared by aiming those glares at her, looking Lexa straight in the eye as she imagined dragging that knife across all those parts of Lexa that she couldn’t stop staring at and wanting to kiss and lick and bite.She could practically smell the blood when Lexa looked back at her in those moments, unflinching. Eyes so dark. Full of understanding. But not a soft kind of understanding. Not an apology or pity.More like a wild animal staring back at her as they circled each other in the forest.More like Lexa was tied to a post enduring Clarke’s slow cuts, chin lifted, looking right back at her. Suffering them but not making a single sound of protest. Not showing any weakness or making her feel guilty about it. Just … letting her do it.She’d fantasized about Lexa tied up like that more than once … late at night … alone in that beautiful room in the tower that Lexa had given her.Plenty of people had betrayed Clarke in her life by then.But no one had ever reacted like that.Didn’t try to reason her out of her feelings or make her compartmentalize them.Welcomed her rage.Didn’t look away.Looked back at her with eyes just as dark and animal.Even as Clarke had screamed at her and spit at her after Roan had brought her into the throne room bound and gagged.Just seeing Lexa in that throne room for a second had brought all her feelings about Lexa roaring back. The feelings that she’d had when Lexa had kissed her. The feelings she’d tried to pretend she didn’t have during those months she’d been alone in the woods. The feelings she’d poured into Niylah while she was fucking her in Lexa’s place … And Clarke had channeled all of those feelings she couldn’t run from with Lexa standing in front of her directly into her rage.And when Lexa had shown up in her room after a week of Clarke refusing to see her, wanting to talk politics and Clarke had fumed at her about Mount Weather … and Lexa had explained her entirely rational reasons for what she had done … the same reasons that had motivated Clarke’s own actions at Mount Weather … what else was left to be angry about besides the fact that she felt personally betrayed by her? At the fact that Lexa had sparked all those feelings in her and then left her.Her anger was entirely personal.And they both understood that.And Lexa showed her that she would bear Clarke’s fury and the sharp cuts of Clarke’s glares and wouldn’t ask her to shove her feelings aside.Even the darkest ones.And that only made Clarke want her more.Clarke looked up at her, “Not everyone’s love is all rainbows.”Lexa nodded, “We have that in common too.”Clarke blew out a breath. She could still feel her heart hammering in her chest from all those memories. Could still feel all the old anger swirling inside.Lexa looked at her carefully, “You’re still angry.”Clarke lifted her chin and said without hesitation, “Yes.”Lexa nodded, and then said quietly, “So hate me and love me forever then … and everything in between …”Clarke surged forward and crashed into Lexa’s lips before she even realized what she was doing. Her hands tugged open Lexa’s shirt, sending a spray of buttons clattering across the floor. She shoved it off Lexa’s shoulders along with her jacket.Lexa’s hand was on the back of her neck, pulling her in as Clarke’s hand slid down Lexa’s chest, feeling … lace …Clarke squeezed Lexa’s breast through the lace as her kisses devoured. Her other hand reached down and grabbed Lexa’s ass as the old anger and desire swirled white hot in her chest.Because deep down, all that old anger and desire was still there, all bound up together in one big messy package. The memory of Lexa abandoning her at Mount Weather was never not gonna piss her off. The politics of it aside, that memory would piss her off eternally. Until the end of time. Because within the space of a few hours, Lexa had kissed her, slipped past the defenses of her carefully guarded heart, had kicked open the door to all these intense feelings inside her … and then left her with that mess of feelings to deal with all on her own, with no Lexa to give them to. With Lexa’s absence hovering around her like a ghost all those the months she’d spent on her own in the woods.But Clarke had found a way to deal with her anger over it eventually … in time … Whenever those feelings resurfaced now, she dealt with them by marching right through the flames of her anger and taking what was hers, so Lexa would forever know that leaving her back then had been a mistake.Sometimes when they were together it was tender. Soft. But that was only part of their dynamic.Those other parts were there too.The dark stuff.Clarke’s pride. Her possessiveness. Her anger. Her sense of entitlement to any and every part of Lexa … because Lexa was hers. Should have been hers from the start.It was unfathomable that Lexa could walk away from her like that … in that way that … Clarke just … couldn’t …Clarke growled into the kiss. Sank her teeth into Lexa’s lower lip.But Lexa wasn’t gonna make it easy for her this time.Her hands slid up to Clarke’s wrists, and with a step, Lexa was standing behind her, holding both Clarke’s wrists behind her back with one hand. Her other hand slid up the back of Clarke’s neck, slid into Clarke’s hair, gently tugging her head back.“Tell me what would’ve happened … if I hadn’t left you at the Mountain …,” Lexa whispered by her ear.Clarke growled at the memory and squirmed to get her wrists free of Lexa’s hold, but Lexa’s grip held fast.She kicked backwards into Lexa’s shin and smirked when she heard a grunt. Lexa’s hand slid out of her hair and Clarke heard the sound of a buckle opening, the sound of leather whipping through belt loops and squirmed again.Lexa shoved her forward a little, and in those two seconds when Clarke was distracted, off balance, lurching forward a step, she felt leather loop around her wrists and yank tight.She jolted upright, her heart thudding in her chest, and kicked backwards again, but missed, and felt the leather loops yank tight around her wrists again.Lexa’s hand was back in her hair, tugging her head back again.“Answer my question,” Lexa growled by her ear, in that high-handed tone she used to use with Clarke when they’d first met. That tone sent a sharp pang of desire straight through Clarke’s core.And the sound of Lexa’s voice, that tone, all growly and low by her ear made Clarke squirm again, made her thighs squirm instead of her wrists.“If you wanna know something, you could’ve just asked …,” Clarke bristled.“And you didn’t have to kick me …,” Lexa growled by her ear, “… but we are what we are …”Lexa let go of her hair and Clarke felt Lexa’s hands knot the belt securely around her squirming wrists.Lexa’s hands landed on Clarke’s shoulders and tugged Clarke’s back against her chest.“Answer my question Clarke …,” Lexa’s voice was like velvet in her ear, all low and seductive and vaguely menacing all at once.Clarke was soaked.Her wrists squirmed against the leather again, her heart felt like it was beating out of her chest.Lexa stepped around her, right in front of her and slid a finger under Clarke’s chin, lifted it a little so they were eye to eye.Clarke glanced down at Lexa’s lips and noticed then that Lexa’s lower lip was bleeding from her bite.She … must have bitten her harder than she’d realized.But … she didn’t regret it either.She licked her lips and Lexa’s green eyes flicked down to her panting mouth, “Tell me. What would have happened?”Clarke shifted her chin off Lexa’s finger and bristled, “After we took the mountain, together, you and I would’ve made a deal. For Skykru. And we would have been together.”Lexa’s eyes narrowed at her, “I want the truth.”Clarke’s forehead furrowed and her wrists squirmed against the belt restraint again. “I just told you the truth,” she grumbled.Lexa lifted her chin a little, and in a flash, her hand was back in Clarke’s hair, tugging her head back a little. And then she stepped in very close, got right in Clarke’s face, so close Clarke could feel Lexa’s breaths tickling against her lips.Clarke’s eyes narrowed at her … and then glanced down at Lexa’s soft lips.She leaned in to kiss her, but Lexa’s fingers tightened in her hair, keeping her head back.“I invited you to Polis … while we were waiting at the door of the Mountain …,” Lexa looked her in the eye, “If you had truly wanted to be with me … if your plan was to make a deal, why not say ‘Yes’?
Oh fuck.
Clarke had built up this whole fantasy in her head about what would’ve happened if Lexa had stayed … if they had taken the Mountain together … but … the reality was … a bit more complicated than that …Lexa didn’t need to know that though.“I didn’t say ‘no’ …,” Clarke grumbled.Lexa arched an eyebrow, “You didn’t say ‘yes’ either. You evaded. Why would you do that … if you wanted to make a deal? If you wanted to be with me?”Clarke chewed at the inside of her cheek in silence, looking straight at Lexa.“We would have made a deal … after the Mountain …,” Clarke repeated.Lexa sighed at her, “You will tell me the whole truth Clarke …”Clarke arched an eyebrow, “I did. And … I know you’re not gonna hurt me.”Lexa sighed again, “You’re right. I won’t hurt you … but you will tell me what I want to know …” and then she reached up and flicked the straining shoulder strap off Clarke’s left shoulder, “… one way …” her finger flicked the straining shoulder strap off Clarke’s other shoulder, “… or the other …”Clarke sucked in a breath, started breathing as shallowly as possible, hoping to defy gravity somehow now that those little straps weren’t in place to hold up the front of her dress anymore.Lexa leaned in close again, whispered against Clarke’s lips, “And I can make you suffer …”Clarke’s tongue ran across her lower lip and she leaned in a little closer to Lexa’s lips, felt Lexa’s grip tighten in her hair.“What was the plan Clarke?” Lexa whispered hotly against her lips, just out of reach, “I know you … I know you had a plan …”Clarke’s wrists squirmed behind her back again, her heart hammering in her chest.Lexa reached up and teased her fingertips lightly across the top of Clarke’s chest, making it infinitely harder for Clarke to keep breathing so shallowly to keep the front of her dress up.She could already feel the tight material creeping a little lower.Lexa’s fingertip traced further down with each pass across the top of her chest, slowly inching its way down across the tops of her breasts that were less and less covered by the straining material of her tight dress.Clarke’s thighs squeezed together at the sensation as she tried to keep her breaths even and shallow to keep the material up.“I … could just walk away …,” Clarke half panted, “You didn’t even tie my ankles …”Lexa nodded, her eyes still on her fingertip trailing across Clarke’s chest, “You could … but not all torture is the kind you want to walk away from …”Clarke’s breaths started coming out a little more ragged.Lexa’s eyes flicked up to meet hers, and then she stepped away, walked into the kitchen, still shirtless from when Clarke had torn her shirt off her earlier. Clarke just stood there, panting, hands tied behind her back, as she watched Lexa open a cabinet and pull out a bottle and a tall glass, get some ice cubes out of the fridge, drop them in the glass and fill it with something brown from the bottle.Lexa turned around and leaned back against the counter, took a sip from her tall glass, looking back at Clarke, her eyes roaming down Clarke’s dress, and Clarke felt her breaths get even more uneven as she took in the sight of Lexa wearing only black tuxedo pants and one of Becca’s black lace bras … a sight that she was only now getting the opportunity to fully appreciate …She’d never seen Lexa wearing any kind of lacy underwear like this before … which … Clarke was now realizing was a real travesty … because Becca’s black lace bra looked fucking amazing on Lexa’s soft curves and tan muscly shoulders.Her thighs clenched against her ruined underwear as she watched Lexa step out of the kitchen, swirling the ice in her glass. Eyes locked with hers.Lexa stopped right in from of her, took another sip, then met her gaze, rattled the ice in the glass a little, “Would you like some? It’s whiskey.”Clarke glanced at Lexa’s lips and husked out, “What’s it taste like?”Lexa took a little sip and then leaned in and Clarke’s lips crashed into hers.Her tongue shoved into Lexa’s mouth with an “Mmmff”, tasting the smokey flavor of the whiskey on Lexa’s tongue, on her breath, on her soft lips, tasting the blood on Lexa’s lower lip, was just starting to sink her teeth into it again when Lexa pulled away.“What’s the verdict Clarke?” Lexa asked, her voice low and gravely.“Yeah …,” Clarke panted, feeling the material of her dress inch a little further down her chest, “I want some.”Lexa hand flew up to Clarke’s throat, holding it with the lightest possible pressure.“If you spit this at me …,” Lexa growled in her Heda voice, “… I will leave you down here … Tied up … All night … Alone.”Clarke chewed at her lip a little ...That … was a fair request.She had spit in Lexa’s face that one time … when she’d been brought to the tower …Clarke nodded a little.Lexa held up the glass gently to Clarke’s lips and tipped it just slightly to give her sip. Clarke felt Lexa’s thumb gently trace across her throat to make sure she was swallowing it. Not trusting her. And Clarke bent her knees a little, sunk down lower, sending a huge gulp of whiskey pouring straight down her throat.Lexa yanked the glass away and led Clarke back up to her full height gently by her throat, glaring daggers at her, and Clarke felt the fabric of her dress inch a little further down her chest. Could feel her hard nipples straining against the fabric from the feeling of Lexa’s warm hand on her neck. From Lexa’s steely expression.Lexa growled at her and walked Clarke backwards a few steps, still holding her by the throat with barely any pressure. Set down the glass on a little low end table by the couch.“What?” Clarke smirked at her, “You only said I couldn’t spit it at you … You didn’t say how much I could have …”“True …,” Lexa looked back at her, “But you still haven’t answered my question …”Clarke’s lips pressed together.Lexa’s hand tightened the tiniest bit around her throat, “So tell me Clarke … What was your plan? Not accepting my invitation to Polis … If you wanted to be with me so badly … why tell me ‘Not yet’? What were you actually going do after we took down the Mountain … together …”And honestly, at that moment, Clarke started to feel a little lightheaded, from the delicious feeling of Lexa’s warm hand wrapped around her throat, from the warm fuzzy feeling of her big gulp of whiskey wrapping around her brain.“I was … I was gonna …,” Clarke panted, looking into Lexa’s eyes that were now just pools of endless black.Lexa leaned in closer, “You were gonna what?”Clarke licked her lips, “Well … I was gonna make a deal with you … for Skykru …”Lexa sighed and looked away. Took her warm hand away from Clarke’s throat, which Clarke was just about to complain about when she saw Lexa reach down and pull a big ice cube out of the glass.She put her warm hand back on Clarke’s throat, looking her in the eye, held up the ice cube between her fingers and said, “Last chance Clarke. What was your plan?”Clarke’s forehead furrowed, her eyes on the ice cube, “Like I said, I was gonna-“Clarke sucked in a breath as she felt the freezing cold tip of the ice cube slide slowly down the side of her neck. Felt every nerve ending in her body prickle to life at the sensation. Sucked in another breath as she felt the icy coldness slowly trail across the top of her chest.“I … I was gonna …,” Clarke stammered, a shiver running through her, “You’d … you’d kissed me … and … and …”“And?” Lexa arched an eyebrow.Clarke hissed as a big chilly drop from the melting ice slide down across the curve of her breast.Her bound wrists squirmed behind her back.“And?” Lexa pressed, still sliding the ice cube lightly across the soft curves of her breasts. Another chilly drop of melted ice water slid down into the crevice between them.“And … and …,” Clarke stammered, “I … I …  couldn’t say I’d come with you … ‘cause … I … wanted to … to keep you …”Lexa grinned.Clarke sighed and closed her eyes, “I wanted to keep you … chasing me …”She felt the ice cube lift away from her skin.“And your plan Clarke?” Lexa’s grinning voice said.Clarke’s eyelids slid open, “I want a reward too ... Not just punishments …”Lexa dropped the ice cube back in the glass, slid her hand behind Clarke’s neck and pulled her in to a deep rolling kiss that had Clarke moaning into her mouth.Clarke slumped forward completely against Lexa’s chest, melting into the warmth of Lexa’s endless rolling kisses. Her wrists straining against the leather behind her back to break free and grab her.“Just tell me …,” Lexa whispered against her lips and gave her a soft, teasing kiss, “Just tell me what your plan was … after we took the Mountain …”Clarke grumbled and leaned forward to recapture Lexa’s lips.Lexa leaned back a little, “Just tell me and I’ll let you go.”Clarke’s panting mouth fell open, her eyes on Lexa’s lips.Lexa arched an eyebrow at her, “Don’t make me do this Clarke …”Clarke’s wrists squirmed behind her back again and the leather creaked.Lexa pushed Clarke’s shoulders back so she was standing squarely on her own two feet again.And Clarke felt the tight material inch a little further down her chest.It was so far down her chest now, barely covering her nipples, that even Lexa couldn’t help a glance down.“Are you sure you don’t wanna just tell me?” Lexa asked, her voice full of gravel.Clarke shook her head, “There’s nothing else to tell. I just … wanted to make you work for it a little.”Lexa sighed heavily and reached over to the glass, pulled out another big ice cube, and picked up right where she’d left off, trailing the curved edge of the ice cube slowly across the tops of Clarke’s breasts. Only it was so much more melty now, sent trail after trail of icy drops sliding down Clarke’s breasts.Clarke started panting heavily at the feeling of the icy water dripping down across her hot skin. Lexa leaned down and trailed her warm tongue through the icy trail and Clarke groaned so fucking loud.Her walls fluttering and squirming. Her thighs rubbing together. She was fucking soaked from this slow torture.“Tell me your plan … after the Mountain …,” Lexa whispered, trailed her warm tongue across the soft curve of Clarke’s breast again, “… and this can all be over …”“There was no plan ….,” Clarke panted.Lexa started sliding the ice cube along the very edge of the dress that had slipped down so fucking low across Clarke’s breasts.Clarke hissed again at the cold against her skin. She could feel her nipples straining so hard against the material.Lexa dropped the ice cube back in the glass, and then reached out and yanked down the front of Clarke’s dress a little on one side, and Clarke groaned at the feeling of Lexa’s icy cold thumb circling over her so fucking hard left nipple.Clarke blew out a breath and panted, “I figured … I figured there’d be a party … after we won …”Lexa glanced up at her, “Yes.”And then she pulled her cold thumb away and leaned down and trailed her warm tongue across Clarke’s achingly hard and now very chilly nipple, licking away every last trace of coldness with her swirling tongue and then sucking it with her warm mouth, and Clarke felt molten heat ripple through her thighs. Felt her walls shuddering and clenching from the feeling of Lexa’s warm mouth suckling against her breast.“Fuck … Lexa …,” Clarke panted.Lexa glanced up at her and growled, “I think you mean Heda …”Clarke moaned and Lexa tugged down the other side of Clarke’s dress and Clarke’s other breast spilled out over the material. Lexa’s warm hand reached over, started kneading it, her cold thumb teasing over the stiff peak of Clarke’s so hard nipple. And fuck … the feeling … the contrast of Lexa’s warm mouth suckling against one of her nipples and her icy cold thumb teasing against the other sent a hard shudder through Clarke’s entire body.“Fuck … Heda … I …,” Clarke panted, “I just … I needed to … to keep you … on my side … or … our side …”Lexa dropped down to her knees and slid her hands up Clarke’s thighs, pushing up the tight material of her dress a little ways.Looked up at Clarke, “And? At the party?”Clarke panted down at her, “If … If … you’d followed through … helping us … take down the Mountain … and … didn’t wipe us out after …”Lexa leaned in and slowly trailed her warm tongue up the inside of Clarke’s thigh a little ways, and Clarke groaned aloud. Her heart hammering in her chest.Lexa leaned over and trailed her tongue slowly up the inside of Clarke’s other thigh.“Fuck …,” Clarke panted down at her, “Then I’d know I could trust you … a little …”Lexa looked up at her and arched an eyebrow, then lid her hands a little further up Clarke’s thighs, under her dress.“And … and …,” Clarke panted, “… our interests … would be aligned …”Lexa’s hands slid up higher, her fingers hooked over the sides of Clarke’s underwear.“Be honest …,” Lexa warned and leaned in, licked her way up the inside of Clarke’s thigh again.“Fuck …,” Clarke panted down at her, “I … had a … an advantage … knowing you liked me … and you not knowing how I felt … about you … And … I could ... use that …,” Lexa tongue slid wonderfully high up the inside of her thigh, and then stopped, "Fuck … after the Mountain … at the party … I’d … maybe bring you a drink or something … and … flirt with you … but … only a little … just to … to keep you onside … chasing me …”Lexa shoved Clarke’s dress up to her hips, started trailing her tongue achingly slowly along the edges of Clarke’s lacy underwear.Clarke stepped her feet wider apart and panted, “Fuck … you … you wouldn’t need us anymore … once you got your people out of the Mountain … You had … too much power over us …”Lexa’s fingertips traced lightly across the drenched lace of Clarke’s panties and a hard shudder wriggled through Clarke’s body.“You could have turned on us after …,” Clarke panted out, “but … if I could keep you … wanting to please me … The more … I could … get you to … fall for me … it would … only help my chances … negotiating a peace deal with you after …”Lexa pulled her already soaked underwear down a little ways and Clarke groaned, her walls rolling and clenching, her wrists straining against the belt to get her hands into Lexa’s hair and pull Lexa’s face in between her thighs.Lexa leaned back a little and grinned up at her, “And what if I didn’t really fall for you? How would that have worked for your little plan?”Clarke panted down at her.And Lexa’s hands slid Clarke’s underwear right back up. She started to stand up.Clarke walls clenched in disappointment and she panted out, “Wait.”Lexa looked up at her.“I … I …,” Clarke stammered.Lexa’s forehead furrowed up at her, “We are being honest with each other now. Right?”Clarke chewed her lip a little, looking down at her.She really like … fucking needed Lexa to go down on her … right now … or like … 15 minutes ago … but Lexa might not like what she had to say.But … full honesty was their new policy with each other ever since Lexa had come to the valley …Lexa started to get up again.“No wait,” Clarke said a little more desperately than she’d meant to.The furrow in Lexa’s forehead deepened as she looked up at her.Clarke sighed, “I knew you’d fall for me …‘cause you’d already kissed me … and … you’re … proud and … competitive … like me. I already knew that about you … If I gave in completely … you’d win and have all the power … over me … my people … everything … But … once you put your feelings out there … you’d wanna win me … I’d have that power over you … to make you work for it … for me …”Lexa smirked up at her, “Clarke … I only gave you the opportunity to kiss me … and I only kissed you once … All the kisses that followed were yours …”Clarke pursed her lips.That was … very true.Lexa’s hands slid back up Clarke’s thighs and pulled down Clarke’s underwear, which Clarke immediately stepped out of the second they hit the floor and stepped her feet apart.Lexa sighed up at her, “You’re still angry … because some part of you still thinks I toyed with your feelings back then … But what could I possibly have to gain from that? I already had all the power. You only believe that because toying with my feelings was your plan all along … You had already started to do it …”Clarke chewed her lip a little.Yeah … that was … pretty hypocritical …“So what was your plan then?” Clarke huffed down at her, “Kissing me … messing with me like that … right before we went into battle.”Lexa looked up at her, “We did not know when the fighting would start … I thought we had a few hours at least.”Clarke’s eyebrows raised, “So … what … You’re plan was … You were gonna fuck me … right before we went to war?”Lexa’s green eyes flashed up at her.It was as good as a ‘Yes.’Lexa didn’t even need to say it.Clarke’s eyebrows raised a little higher at that information. If … that had happened … and then Lexa had left her … and she’d had that to think about during her 3 months alone in the woods … she would have been beyond furious at that extra layer of betrayal … A new word would have to be invented to describe how pissed off she would have been.Lexa sighed, “You were a ball of nerves Clarke … Yelling at me all the time … trying to provoke me … you clearly needed some relief … so you could think clearly.”Clarke scoffed, “So what … it was gonna be like … a favor you were doing for me?Lexa smirked, “A favor to us both. Working with you was quite … stressful for me as well.”Clarke shifted on her feet a little, “And … you thought  … what … that I’d just fall into bed with you? After like … one conversation about you liking me?“Lexa gave her a little grin, “I guess that had to wait till our second kiss … Your interest was not exactly subtle Clarke … I thought perhaps you only needed to be presented with the opportunity. I did not know you were oblivious to your feelings …”Clarke’s forehead furrowed, “I’m not oblivious to my feelingsLexa raised an eyebrow, “Then tell me … do you think your plan would have worked? If we had taken the Mountain together … if you had flirted with me at the party after? What do you think would have happened?”Lexa shoved Clarke’s dress up her thighs again and leaned in, teased her tongue through Clarke’s dripping slit, and Clarke’s hips canted at the contact, at the feeling of Lexa’s warm wet tongue sliding through her drenched folds, at the feeling of Lexa absolutely devouring her pussy … finally.“Fuck … Lexa …,” Clarke moaned, her hips rocking in a little rhythm with rolling movements of Lexa’s tongue.Lexa leaned back a little and kissed her thigh, murmured, “What do you think would have happened if you’d tried your plan with me? Tried to manipulate me … control me like that … Showed up at my tent after and flirted with me … You know me now Clarke. What would’ve happened …”“Lexa …,” Clarke groaned at the sudden absence of Lexa’s mouth where she needed it most.Lexa looked up at her, “Total honesty between us now, right? And … with ourselves?”Clarke tried to shift forward a little to get Lexa’s mouth back on her pussy.Lexa leaned back a little and smiled up at her innocently. Gave Clarke’s thighs a little squeeze.Clarke sighed down at her, “We … probably would’ve fucked. That night. We’d ‘ve been all over each other …”Lexa smiled and leaned in, started devouring Clarke’s pussy again. Swirling her tongue against Clarke’s fluttering entrance over and over, sending ripples of pleasure shuddering through Clarke’s walls with each glide of her tongue over Clarke’s slick clit.“Fuck …,” Clarke panted, glistening sweat breaking out across her forehead as her hips rocked in time with Lexa’s tongue, “I’d have been so fucked …”Lexa hummed into her pussy, the vibration sending another wave of shudders through Clarke’s rolling and clenching walls.“Fuck … I’d … I’d’ve come so hard for you …,” Clarke panted, her eyelids squeezing shut as she tried to concentrate on forming words. As she tried to keep her legs from entirely turning to jello from the way Lexa’s tongue was swirling between her thighs, her wrists straining against Lexa’s belt behind her back, her bare nipples rock hard and completely exposed from when Lexa had pulled down the front of her dress to suck them.“And … you would’ve known … how I felt about you … mmfff,” Clarke panted, her thighs rocking, greedily rubbing her clit against the swirling glide of Lexa’s tongue.A wave of shudders flooded through Clarke’s walls so fucking hard as fast panting breaths rolled through her chest … Her thigh muscles twitching and flexing under Lexa’s warm hands.And then Lexa leaned back a little and grinned up at her, “Perhaps it would have just been a one time thing … casual …”Clarke furiously shook her head ‘No’ and pressed her pussy right back against Lexa’s mouth.She could feel Lexa chuckling as her tongue resumed its total dismantling of her sanity. Swirling around her clit in a maddening little rhythm. Her hands massaging Clarke’s thighs as she did it.“I … I can’t …,” Clarke panted.Lexa’s lips sealed around her clit and she started to suck.“Oh fuck … fuck … Ican’tdoanythingcasualwithyou …,” Clarke screamed out all in a rush as a wave of hard contractions slammed through her walls.Lexa slid two fingers inside her and started pumping them, rubbing against the little sensitive spot inside with each pump, her lips still wrapped firmly around Clarke’s clit, swirling her tongue against it over and over again.Clarke screamed and came so fucking hard on Lexa’s fingers, her whole body trembling and twitching, hard shudders flooding through her walls, slick pouring down her thighs, down Lexa’s fingers, down Lexa’s wrist in a fucking flood.Clarke’s head flew back and her back arched as she screamed again and another wave of so hard shudders wriggled through.Her knees buckled and Lexa slid forward underneath her as Clarke’s hips rocked in a desperate little rhythm directly on Lexa’s face, practically sitting on Lexa’s face as she came again, so fucking hard.Lexa’s hands wrapped around her thighs, holding her up, holding her in place as her tongue swirled and swirled through the mess.“Oh fuck … Lexa … I would’ve been yours …,” Clarke panted, rubbing her clit in a fast little rhythm against Lexa’s tongue, “I’m yours I’m yours.”She screamed and came again all over Lexa’s perfect mouth, her soft lips, her talented tongue, her whole body shuddering, her thighs jerking against Lexa’s warm hands.Lexa hummed into her pussy, sending another wave after wave of shudders trembling through Clarke’s entire body.“Fuck Babe, you’re so good … so fucking good …,” Clarke whimpered.Fucking whimpered it.Her voice sounding so needy and small that Clarke barely recognized it as her own. Blinking back tears as her thighs slowed their rocking against Lexa’s face.Lexa shifted out from under her and stood up, keeping a hand on Clarke the whole time so she didn’t fall over on her trembling legs.And then leaned in and whispered in her ear, “I would’ve made sure you were my slave Clarke … before I made you my queen …”Clarke groaned, a hard shudder wriggling through her body, and Lexa reached behind her and untied Clarke’s wrists, and then slid her hands under Clarke’s ass and Clarke hopped up into Lexa’s arms, arms and legs wrapped tightly around her, her face nuzzled into the corner of Lexa’s neck.“Fucking love you …,” Clarke mumbled into the side of Lexa’s neck, “Fucking always loved you.”“Almost …,” Lexa said, carrying her up the stairs, “It took a few days … for me too.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The next morning, Lexa woke up to the distinct feeling that someone was watching her.Her eyelids fluttered open and she turned to see Clarke on the pillow beside her. Just looking at her.“Good morning houman,” Lexa smiled at her softly, her voice still rough from sleep.Clarke traced her thumb across Lexa’s cheek and said quietly, “How are you feeling?”“Good,” Lexa looked back at her, “The flame feels … different this time … Less … noise in my mind …”Clarke nodded a little against the pillow, traced her fingers across Lexa’s chest, “Do you … feel okay enough to …”Lexa smiled at her, “You did not ask me that last night …”Clarke chewed her lip a little, “Yeah … I kinda … got distracted … by the tux … and … the torture and all …”Lexa grinned at her.“But at least I’m asking now …,” Clarke said quietly.Lexa smiled.And Clarke leaned in, started kissing her way down the side of Lexa’s neck, mumbled, “That’s not a typical first date with me by the way …”Lexa tilted her head back so Clarke could kiss further under her jaw, “If it had been our first date it would have ended much the same way …”Clarke smirked at her, “Probably.”Lexa arched an eyebrow, “Probably?”Clarke sighed and leaned over and kissed her again, “In my culture … fucking someone on the first date is kinda … unusual.”Lexa leaned in and kissed her back, a slow, rolling kiss, whispered against her lips, “Perhaps I would have introduced you to my culture then …”Clarke growled and kissed her again, her tongue sliding into Lexa’s mouth, already getting lost in the feeling, mumbled, “Would you like to introduce me to your culture right now?”Lexa whipped the sheet off her chest and pulled Clarke on top of her. Chest to chest, her hand slid down and grabbed Clarke’s ass.“Missed you …,” Clarke panted against her lips and kissed her again, mumbled out, “… when you were sleeping … We all missed you.”“We?” Lexa asked.Clarke sat up, straddling Lexa’s muscly stomach and took Lexa’s hands, put them on her breasts, “Yes. We missed you. Them in particular.”Lexa grinned and leaned over, started sucking Clarke’s hard nipple. Her warm tongue teasing over it while her hands massaged Clarke’s soft breasts, holding their weight.“God they love you …,” Clarke panted, her hips rocking, covering Lexa’s abs in slick as she ground down against them. Little shudders of pleasure wriggling through her walls.Lexa started alternating, kneading her breasts with both hands, her warm mouth moving back and forth licking and sucking the stiff peaks of her nipples until Clarke was a squirming shuddering panting mess.Clarke let out a low groan as wave after wave of hard shudders flooded through her walls. Her pumping hips started to jerk, heavy panting breaths rolling through her chest.“Oh fuck … fuck …,” Clarke screamed and came in a flood, hips bucking wildly, slick coating Lexa’s muscly stomach.Lexa’s soft mouth kept sucking Clarke’s nipples as her thighs shuddered and jerked, as waves of warmth radiated through her chest, making her whole body feel tingly and floaty in the best way.Clarke slumped down and kissed Lexa breathlessly, her walls still shuddering and clenching.“Fuck … I hod yu in,” Clarke panted.Lexa’s hand slid into her hair and pulled Clarke in to another deep kiss.And then she whispered, “And ai yu. But … it is time to get to work.”Clarke leaned back a little and looked at her, forehead furrowed, “But … we’re just getting started.”Lexa smiled softly at her, “There will be plenty of time for that … Right now though, I do need to work. You know … to save everyone …”Clarke grumbled and slid off of Lexa’s stomach. Collapsed onto the bed beside her, boneless.She reached over and trailed her thumb across Lexa’s cheek, “I can work fast … for you …”Lexa grinned, “Let me finish my duties first … Then we can play.”Clarke grumbled again. Her bottom lip poking out in a pout.Lexa sighed, “Okay … you can take a shower with me.”Clarke grinned triumphantly. —- The shower took a bit longer than expected.Lexa insisted that they take their warm slices of sweet breakfast bread with them to the other side of the building to get started on reprogramming the City of Light.“You could go for a swim instead … play in the house …,” Lexa said as they walked down the big marble hallway to what Lexa referred to as ‘the workshop’.Clarke shook her head, “We’re spending this work-honeymoon together. Plus … I wanna keep an eye on you …”Lexa’s forehead furrowed at her, “I’ve had the flame before Clarke … I’m fine. Really.”Clarke glanced at her, “Yeah but … I hadn’t seen it before yesterday … only knew what you’d told me about it … And it looks … kinda …”Lexa raised an eyebrow, “Ingenious?”Clarke sighed back at her, “I mean … no offense to Becca … It is genius … clearly … But … it’s in your neck … attaches to your brain … ”“That’s not exactly how it-,” Lexa started.Clarke put her hand on Lexa’s shoulder and squeezed so she had to stop walking.“Lexa …,” Clarke looked her in the eye, “Yesterday, I watched an AI crawl into my wife’s neck. I’m allowed to have feelings about that. I’m gonna worry.”Lexa looked back at her, chewing her lip a little, and then said, “Bekka says to maybe think of it like … Raven’s leg brace … It is a tool … designed only to help. And it is helping me right now … scanning my body to ensure that I am healthy. Accelerating healing anywhere it is needed, sending signals to my body to direct repairs.”Clarke’s eyebrows raised. “Repairs of what?”Lexa cleared her throat a little, “Well … anywhere where there is damage … because the flame makes the bearer stronger …”Clarke was just starting to panic at the idea that Lexa wasn’t ok when Lexa put her hand on the side of her own neck, which was covered with Clarke’s hickeys and love bites from the night before.“I want those there …,” Clarke grumbled, “I put those there on purpose.”Lexa smirked, “And what purpose is that?”“‘Cause you’re mine …,” Clarke huffed.Lexa chuckled and took Clarke’s hand, resuming their walk to the workshop, “There is no one here to see them Clarke.”“I see them …,” Clarke grumbled, “And you see them … when you look in the mirror.”Lexa gave her a little grin, “That is true. And I do not mind them.”Clarke huffed again, “You love them. ‘Cause their mine.”Lexa chuckled again and led her into the workshop, a big open room with a bunch of metal tables all pushed together into one giant table in the center covered with tech gear. The four walls were lined with computer desks.Lexa walked her over to a computer in front of a wall covered in monitors, and they took their seats at the desk side by side, setting down the plates of their toasted breakfast bread.Lexa said something that was … maybe in Latin? and the monitors on the wall all blinked on. The big computer started humming to life too.Lexa scooted her chair up to the keyboard and started typing, her fingers flying across the keys like she’d done it a million times before.Clarke took bites of her bread, chewing, just staring at the so fucking weird sight of Lexa working on a computer, in her modern clothes from Becca’s closet. A black t-shirt and blue jeans. Wearing a pair of sneakers from one of the guest closets.It was easier to imagine Lexa as a modern person like this …Not that Lexa wasn’t modern.She saw way beyond the much more primitive society that she was a product of.But in their post praimfaya world, it was the old world that was the more advanced one, the more ‘modern’ one in the colloquial sense of the word, even though it was the past.Clarke watched the big screens on the wall fill completely with lines of code. Watched Lexa typing away, making adjustments to what she presumed was the City of Light’s programming.Lexa gave her a little smile and said, “We can talk if you wish. This part is easy … doesn’t require concentration.”“It’s so crazy that you can do this …,” Clarke looked back at her.“Bekka’s brain is amazing,” Lexa smiled, still typing, “It is … extremely interesting to see the world as she sees it …”“You really do know her huh …,” Clarke said, and took another bite of bread.Lexa nodded as she typed, “Yes. I admire her. We are quite different. She has little interest in politics. But she is pragmatic … a problem solver who cares deeply for her people. In that we are alike.”Clarke smiled, “I know Raven got a lot from her too when she took ALIE’s chip. Still remembered how to program after. Knew some stuff about Becca’s lab too.”Lexa nodded, ”Like me when I took out the flame.”Clarke pressed her lips together, then said, “The chip left something in her brain …  It almost killed her.”Lexa glanced over at her from her typing, “Only because of the way her chip was removed … with the EMP. The flame is removed in a different way … and it is designed not to harm its bearer. Bekka took the flame herself. She would not have done that if it were dangerous.”Clarke sighed and just looked at Lexa, watching her type, hoping to god that that was true.“You miss her … Raven,” Lexa changed the subject, and one of the screens blinked and changed from lines of code to something that looked like status reports.Clarke smiled at the memory of her friend, “Yeah … I do. But … she loved being in space … And now she can do all the zero-g walks she wants … Doesn’t have to follow anyone’s rules but her own. And she has all that tech and machinery on the Ring to play with.”Lexa turned in her seat to look at her, “Would you like to speak to her? To all of them?”Clarke’s eyebrows raised, “Of course. But … the satellite tower got messed up by the death wave.”Lexa smiled at her, “This compound was built to withstand catastrophic events … to military specifications. Everything has redundancies. Duplicates. There is another satellite dish on the other side of the island … It is retractable. Underground. And it is functional. It was only down for routine maintenance checks. I just need to bring it back online. An above ground check will also need to be done to make sure the hatch is clear of any debris before I open it.”Clarke lurched forward and squeezed her arms around her, “Oh my god.”Lexa leaned back, started typing again, “Here … I can show you the map of the island. Where it is …,” an image blinked onto the screen, and Lexa zoomed in on the spot to show her, “It’s at the highest point on the island … or … what was the highest point … when this was an island. You just need to drive the rover there … make sure there is nothing over the hatch that could fall in and damage the equipment while I set up what is necessary here.”Clarke shook her head, “I’ll do it tomorrow. Stay with you today.”Lexa reached over and squeezed her hand, “I’m fine Clarke. Really. You go check the hatch while I’m working here.”Clarke looked at her skeptically.Lexa gave her a little grin, “I swear … I’m fine. And I won’t need your help with anything until tomorrow at the very earliest. Go check the hatch and then we can start sending them messages.”Clarke eyed her for a moment, “Mmkay ... but … I’ll be back soon.”Lexa leaned over and kissed her cheek, “Bye Honey.”Clarke smiled so big at her and stood up, “Bye Babe.” —- When Clarke got to the spot Lexa had shown her on the map, the highest point on the “island”, she’d had to use the rover’s emergency shovel to clear away all the dirt and rocks and debris over the metal hatch.The shovel was pretty small. The only reason she kept it in the little compartment in the rover with the spare tire and the jack was so she could dig out a tire if it ever got stuck in the dessert sand or mud.But it worked well enough to clear the dirt and rocks and debris off the satellite tower’s hatch.It just took time.Hours.And when it was clear of all the dirt and rocks the radiation wave had kicked up over it, Clarke crawled back into the rover’s driver’s seat and headed back to the compound all sweaty.Found Lexa at the same computer, typing away furiously. Saw the screens filled with endless lines of code.“How’s it going?” Clarke asked, plopping down in the seat beside her.“Good …,” Lexa said, not even looking away from the screen, “Is the hatch clear?”“Yup,” Clarke grinned, “I can’t believe I’m actually gonna get to talk to them.”Lexa finished up her line of code and then reached over and pulled Clarke’s chair right next to hers, leaned over and kissed her, smiled out, “Let’s hope they’re okay.”Clarke smiled, “They’ve got Raven. They’re gonna be okay. Raven said the dish on the Ring is called Sat Star 1.”Lexa nodded and turned back to the keyboard, started typing again and a new image flashed up on one of the screens, “Okay … the hatch door is now opening … Then the tower will extend and the dish will reorient toward their approximate position. It may take us a while to get an answer though. They may be sleeping. Or not have someone monitoring their comms system all the time. But I will put a repeating message out to them on a loop.”Lexa looked up at the screens and said, “Satellite comms speakers on.”Something beeped.“Satellite comms mic on …”Something beeped again. Lexa looked at her, “We will hear them if they answer. Satellite comms mic mute.”Another beep.“So they don’t have to listen to me typing,” Lexa grinned at her.Apparently no one was monitoring communications on the Ring.Clarke waited around in the workshop with Lexa for a little while. Thought about what she would say to her friends. Got antsy. Started looking through cabinets. Found more tech gear. Found some walkie talkies sitting in their charging stations and tested them out.Grabbed one for herself and another for Lexa so they could talk to each other no matter where they were in Becca’s compound.“Have you eaten anything?” Clarke asked.Lexa glanced away from the screens, “No. Just breakfast.”Clarke nodded, “I’m gonna go shower at the house and get us something.”“I’ll call you on the walkie if they respond,” Lexa said to the screens, “Love you.”“Love you too,” Clarke grinned and headed back to Becca’s place.She could really start to picture what their lives together would have been like in the pre-first praimfaya world …Wearing Becca’s clothes. Seeing Lexa working away at her day job.Maybe in the old world they would have had a cute little apartment in a big city.Clarke shook her head.No.They’d probably have a house further outside of a city … with more green space and a yard for Lexa and their kids to play in … like people did in those old tv shows she’d watched on the Ark.They’d both be teachers, Clarke decided. Maybe college professors.Part of Clarke suspected that Lexa would have been in the military in the old world, in any world, but Clarke didn’t entertain that thought for long.Even if that was the case, Clarke was positive that she’d talk Lexa out of that career eventually, in any version of a life they had together.She couldn’t imagine any version of a life with Lexa where she wasn’t extremely protective of her. And now that they had kids, she couldn’t imagine any version of their lives where they weren’t raising kids together either.She honestly hadn’t spent very much time at all thinking about having kids before she’d met Madi. Had never really thought about creating her own little family until Lexa. But being around Madi had kicked these mothering instincts she didn’t know she had into gear, and now she couldn’t imagine her life without at least one little one.Maybe they would have lived in a little apartment in a big city before they had their kids though. In the entire history of humanity, there probably hadn’t been all that many 20 somethings who had 8 children like they did.This time at Becca’s, alone together, just the two of them, was probably pretty close to what their pre-praimfaya, pre-kid life in the old world would have been like.And Clarke wanted to make the most of their time here. Whatever time they weren’t working …Once she’d showered, she went back to the part of the building that Lexa was in. Cooked dinner from what was in the pantries of what Lexa referred to as “the staff kitchen”.Took two steaming plates to the workshop and ate with Lexa at the desk. They guessed at what the kids were up to at home as they ate their meal. Speculated on how Reva and Penn were likely doing managing their brood at the farm.Lexa suggested that Clarke relax at the house, said she would call on the walkies if the Ring replied to their message.But Clarke wanted to stay.So Lexa explained the upgrades she was making to the City of Light’s programming as she typed late into the evening, and then into the night. The new version of Polis she was creating. The forests she was adding with her lines of code, the simulated wildlife, the plants and trees, the mountains and rivers to give the clans back their home territories, or even better versions of their territories in a world where no violence would be needed to defend them. Even Louwoda Kliron Kru’s valley would be returned to them.Their people would have the ability to build homes and craft tools as they had requested of Aden and Bekka too. Lexa explained the changes she would be making to the programming of the new chips as well, so that the people in the bunker would keep their individuality. Their painful memories would still be there, so they would not forget the loved ones they had lost. But the pain of those memories would be dampened, just like the flame had helped dampen the sting of Lexa’s painful memories.Just like how the sting of many of Clarke’s painful memories had eventually dampened some … over time … when Clarke had finally had some time to breathe during her years in the valley without an impending crisis hanging over her head.“New Polis will be a world without killing …,” Lexa explained, “People can fight if they wish … for sport … I am sure my people will wish too … Octavia and Lincoln as well … but there will be no one need to fear injury … or fear for their safety …”“That’s gonna take some getting used to … for my people anyway …,” Clarke looked back at her.Lexa nodded, typing away, “For many of mine as well … but if we were able to find peace after all we have been through … then our people will as well.”“Um … Hello?”A voice said through a speaker in the wall.Clarke sucked in a breath.She’d know that voice anywhere.Raven.“Hello? This is Reyes Station … Do you copy?”“Holy fuck …,” Clarke breathed.Lexa reached over and squeezed her hand, grinned out, “Are you ready?”Clarke nodded, her eyes already wet with tears.Lexa looked at the screens, “Satellite comms mic unmute.”Something beeped.“Raven?” Clarke said aloud, her voice thick with emotion.“Holy shit ……..,” the voice whispered, “Clarke?!?”“Yeah … It’s me,” Clarke answered, tears spilling down her cheeks, “Are you guys okay?”“Oh my god … Clarke … We thought you were ...”“Nope …,” Clarke grinned, “The treatment worked. Turns out I’m a nightblood.”“Holy shit!”“Yeah …,” Clarke grinned, “Is everyone okay up there? Bellamy? Monty? Harper?”“Yup …,” Raven’s smiling voice answered, “Emori and Echo too … and the cockroach of course …”Clarke laughed, “Of course. How are you?”“All systems go in Reyes Station …,” Raven answered, “Air. Water. Nice big view of Earth. We’re living the dream … Well ... except for the gross algae from the farm. But Monty’s working on that.”One of the big screens on the wall changed to a wall of text about algae, “Can you tell us what kind of algae it is?” Lexa spoke up, typing, “I may be able to send you specs on optimal farming conditions and bioengineering methods to improve taste.” “Who’s that?” Raven’s voice answered.“That’s Lexa …,” Clarke grinned.Raven barked out a laugh, “Of course it is. How the hell are you Commander?”“I am well. Congratulations on your successful mission to space and revival of the Ring. Bekka sends her regards as well.”“The Reyes Space Station …,” Raven corrected her, “This baby’s all mine now.”Lexa smiled, “You deserve it.”“God … Clarke … I can’t believe you’re alive …,” Raven’s choked up voice said, “The Ring only got your signal to power up just before I reached the hangar door … You must’ve still been outside when the death wave hit … Are you okay?” “Yeah I …,” Clarke started.“What.” Lexa growled, the legs of her chair scraping against the floor as she stood up.“Lexa …,” Clarke reached out a hand to Lexa’s clenched fist, which Lexa immediately jerked away from.“Yeah … Your girl’s a real badass …,” Raven answered, “The death wave was closing in on us … but Clarke went out to the satellite tower anyway … to turn on power up here … so we could get inside.”Lexa’s jaw was clenched so hard it looked like her teeth might shatter. She reached down and picked up her chair … walked a dozen feet away … and then started smashing it against the floor.“Whoa … What’s that?”“One sec Raven … Satellite comms mic mute …,” Clarke said aloud, and something beeped, “Lexa …”“No …,” Lexa growled, still smashing the chair against the floor, breaking it into pieces.The plastic seat broke free of the legs, and then Clarke watched Lexa smash that to pieces with one of the metal chair legs.When there was nothing left but tiny pieces of smashed plastic on the floor, Lexa dropped the chair leg, panting, put her hands on her hips, looking down at all the smashed bits.Clarke stood up and walked over to her, “Lexa … I had to do it. They couldn’t open the hangar door otherwise … They’d all have died if I hadn’t …”Lexa sighed and turned around to face her, her face so weary, “They wouldn’t have been in danger if they hadn’t left the bunker! Raven made her choice to stay at the lab. I told you no one was allowed to leave the bunker and you left anyway … I am allowed to be upset. You promised me you would go to space to stay safe and you lied to me. Even with nightblood, the force of the death wave could have killed you. And you were outside when it came?!? It leveled Polis Clarke. Buildings.”Clarke bit her lip.Lexa reached out and took Clarke’s hand so gently in hers, her own hands shaking, her eyes filled with tears, “Clarke …”Clarke squeezed Lexa’s hands and looked her in the eye, “I can’t regret saving Raven, Lexa … and everyone else that followed me here … I owed them that. And … I wasn’t gonna go back to space. I won’t go back there. It … wasn’t … entirely about staying for you … I wanted to stay on the ground. Whatever happened.”Lexa shook her head, “And your friends just … let you walk out into the death wave to die?!?”Clarke pressed her lips together, “Don’t blame them … The death wave hadn’t quite gotten here yet … And … things happened fast … I didn’t really give them a choice … Because it wasn’t their choice to make … It was mine. And I got to the lab as soon as I could … I … didn’t go out there to die Lexa … I swear … that … was never the plan …”Lexa sighed and pulled Clarke into her arms, squeezed her tight, and grumbled into Clarke’s shoulder, “Never again … You are done being a … a badass … You are my houman now and nothing else.”Clarke nodded.“Say it …,” Lexa grumbled, squeezing her tighter.Clarke leaned back a little and looked at her, “You’re gonna make me the same deal right? No rushing back into that bunker … No trying to take Aden’ place …unless you and I agree that you absolutely have to. Objectively.”Lexa sighed and looked away.Clarke arched an eyebrow, “You are the biggest badass here. No one wants you in that bunker. Not even Aden. No one. And you are literally giving him your mind in the flame to help him.”Lexa looked back at her.Clarke’s forehead furrowed, “Ai yu don eidon kom bilaik youngens gon raise. Ai na nou na doing dei de alone.”
I have 8 of your children to raise. I will not be doing that alone.
Lexa pressed her lips together.Clarke reached up, gripped Lexa’s shoulders, “Promise me. I can’t take it … How upset you feel now … That’s how I felt so many times … It’s how I felt when you got shot … And at the challenge … And when Semet tried to kill you … And when you took the chip to stop ALIE … And when I was worrying about you for years when you were trapped in the bunker … It’s how I feel every time you talk about going back to the bunker …”Clarke’s hands gripped her shoulders harder, “I can’t risk anything happening to you … Not again. If something happens to you … I won’t survive it …”Lexa looked back at her for a long moment, and then gave a shallow nod, “Okay.”Clarke wrapped her in a tight hug, “Okay then. I’m yours. Nothing else.”Lexa let out a heavy sigh and took her hand, grabbed a not destroyed chair with her other hand and walked back to the desk. Took a seat beside her.“Satellite comms mic unmute …,” Clarke said aloud, and the speaker beeped. She took Lexa’s hand and gave it a squeeze, “Sorry about that Raven. You … kinda got me in trouble with the wife … She didn’t know about all the stuff with the death wave …”“Oh it’s the wife now is it?” Raven’s grinning voice said.“Yup …,” Clarke grinned back, “We haven’t had the ceremony yet … but I passed all the kids’ tests for her so that’ll be-““Um … the kids?” Raven asked lightly.“Yeah …,” Clarke grinned at Lexa, “Lexa and I … we’re living in Shallow Valley now … on that one patch of green … with my daughter … a nightblood girl I found … Madi. She’s 10. Lexa’s nightblood kids from the tower are there with us too … We have a farm …”“Wait … hold up …,” Raven laughed, “You two are farmers now? With children?!?”“Yes …,” Lexa answered, and gave Clarke a little grin, squeezed her hand, “Clarke is an excellent mother. And teacha.”“Raven …,” Clarke grinned, “We have 8 kids … We’ll have 9 when Lexa’s oldest comes to the valley.”There was a solid minute of laughing over the speaker.“It is … a lot of youngens …,” Lexa glanced at Clarke.“It’s a ton of kids Commander…,” Raven chuckled, “But if anyone can pull it off you two can. I mean … what’s 9 kids when you’ve been in charge of the 100 … right Clarke?”“Well … these kids are all smart and well behaved … so …,” Clarke smirked back, “Really it’s a piece of cake by comparison ...”“God … I can’t wait to tell everyone about this …” Raven chuckled, “What about everyone in the bunker? Our sensors up here say atmospheric radiation levels are still high … Looks like the ground is gonna  be unsafe for a lot longer than we thought … Bellamy’s so worried about Octavia.”“I am working on a solution right now … at Bekka’s …,” Lexa glanced at Clarke, “We … cannot make more nightbloods in a safe way … And the bunker’s life support systems will not sustain them for as long as it will take for the ground to become livable for them … So … I am reprogramming a backup copy of the City of Light … making it into the world of the clans. New Polis. I am making new chips as well … It will be different this time … No coercion. No violence. Entirely voluntary. And our people will not lose themselves as they did last time … They will keep their memories. Have more free will. No pain. And the simulation itself will have new parameters and realms for the sorts of lives the people in the bunker have said they would like to live there …”The speaker was quiet for a long moment.“Raven?” Clarke asked.“Yeah … I’m just thinking … It’s a good solution …,” Raven answered, “ALIE’s solution. I’ve thought about that a lot up here … That … maybe we messed up … by shutting her down. We can see everything from up here you know … All the bare continents … almost all the green is gone. For all its flaws … the City of Light was beautiful … No suffering … Peace … ALIE just fucked up the execution. But honestly … she had a good idea … I mean … not the torture and mind control … not the making us into her minions but … the City of Light itself … it’s a good idea. It’s still up here you know …”Lexa’s eyebrow raised, “What do you mean?”“Well …,” Raven cleared her throat, “Remember how ALIE had me send the City of Light program up to the Ring from the comms system in Arkadia … so it couldn’t get damaged or destroyed on Earth? Turns out the City of Light program is still up here … on our computer systems … It’s just … off … since Lex shut it down. The program isn’t running. It’s dormant.”“You didn’t delete it?” Clarke asked.“I mean … I didn’t start the program running again … Didn’t want to risk her taking over the ship … but I can’t delete it … It’s a protected program. Needs some kinda special admin credentials to delete. And … I don’t think I’d delete it even if I could. I’ve dug around in the code … There’s like … so many people in there … like … thousands of them … Or … a version of them anyway … They’d all be gone forever if I deleted it …”Lexa started typing furiously, “Raven … Can you send it back down to me? I could patch it with the alterations I’m working on down here …”“No problem …,” Raven answered, her keys clicking too.A new image popped up on one of the screens. A massive file downloading.Lexa slumped back down in her chair and smiled at her, “Clarke … we could bring them back … Reunite those in the bunker with all those who took the chip the first time. Bring back thousands from across the clans.”“Will they still be the same people they were though?” Clarke asked, “The ones ALIE took? They were … so different after they took the chip … And what about the people who took the chip the first time and take it again? Will there just be like … two versions of them in there?”“You could treat repeat residents as an update …,” Raven answered for her, “But you should only make alterations to the program while it’s not running of course … dormant … just to be safe … And to make sure none of the minds in there get damaged …”Lexa nodded, “Yes. The two worlds would need to be kept entirely separate until City of Light version 1 is thoroughly patched with the new parameters … and ALIE is completely wiped from the program. It will take more time … And I will have to see if I can adjust the programming for the City 1 residents so that they are more themselves as well ...”“It should be possible …,” Raven added, “Their full minds must be in there somewhere … I mean … ALIE let us remember stuff about ourselves when she wanted us to … when she had us manipulating other people into taking the chip … by guilting them … talking about our shared trauma … We couldn’t remember that stuff about ourselves normally after we took the chip … It was inaccessible to us unless ALIE allowed it … but that means that that information was still stored somewhere … still accessible to the program somehow …”Lexa nodded slowly, “It will be a big job … Restoring the people there … Altering the City of Light … And I will need to ask the people in the bunker if they are willing for New Polis to have City of Light residents as their neighbors before the worlds are joined … For now … I will just build New Polis.”Clarke shook her head, “Aden will ask them. And he’ll fix the City of Light and join the two places if Bunker Kru wants that. Not you.”Lexa looked at her.Clarke sighed, “Look … we’re not just popping the flame in and out of your brain like a thumb drive. Brains are fucking fragile … delicate tissues … If you can do all this programming with the flame, then so can he. And we don’t need to be popping the flame in and out of his head either. Aden is Heda. Not you. You’re retired from politics. Remember?”“I so should have guessed that you two would be married by now …,” Raven chuckled, “You’ve had the whole married couple bickering thing down from jump.”“We’re kinda still processing some stuff …,” Clarke smirked, “I’m sure it’s the same for all of you in Space Kru.”“Oh totally …,” Raven answered, “Nice to have some new blood though … Emori and Echo help us mix things up a bit from our boring old grudges …”“Do you have the materials up there to make chips as well?” Lexa asked, “Perhaps it would be possible to bring you to New Polis too. Use your comms system to link your minddrives to the program running down here …”“I honestly have no idea … Send me some specs for the chips,” Raven answered, “We have the engineering bay and medical. Maybe there’s stuff there we could use to make them … The chip tech might be more specialized than what we’ve got up here. But maybe we could jack our brains into the City of Light signal with a different kind of device.”“Would you all want to go there?” Clarke asked.“I mean … Bellamy would wanna see Octavia again if he could for sure …,” Raven answered, “And the City of Light is … immortality right? That’s pretty fucking appealing. Think how smart I’d get. Bell would probaby have to sell Echo on it though … They’re a thing now …”Clarke grinned, “Honestly … I can kinda see it …”“Totally,” Raven answered, “Not sure about the rest though. Let me check Lexa’s specs and see if it’s even possible with what we’ve got up here.”“Sending the material requirements now …,” Lexa said, typing away on her keyboard, “The new programming for your chips will have to come later … when it’s done. Hopefully in a few days.”“Hey … We’ve got nothing but time up here …,” Raven’s smiling voice answered, “And I’ll have Monty send down the details on what we’re working with algae-wise tomorrow … That stuff’s not really my department … They’re all asleep now, but we could do a group call at like … 10 a.m. tomorrow your time.”“I’d love that,” Clarke grinned.“Well hey … I’m gonna get to work checking out the specs for the new chips. Congrats you two on the wedding, the kids, the farm … and saving everybody again. And god … Clarke … I’m just so glad you’re okay …”“Back ‘atcha …,” Clarke sighed, “So fucking glad.”“Good luck with that one Commander …,” Raven teased, “She’s a handful.”Clarke slapped Lexa’s leg, “Shut up. Why does everyone say that?”“I said nothing,” Lexa arched an eyebrow at her, “Raven said it … your good friend … who knows you well …”Clarke slapped at Lexa’s leg again.“Alright lovebirds … Have fun working that out …,” Raven chuckled, “Group chat tomorrow. Reyes Station out.”The speaker beeped as the transmission ended.Lexa ran her hand over her face, her eyes all watery.Clarke reached out a hand and rubbed her shoulder, “You okay?”Lexa nodded, “It’s just … getting so many of my people back …,” she looked up at the image of the massive file downloading on one of the screens, “This data … it’s lives … So many people I thought were lost forever … Thousands of people … So many people I couldn’t save …”Clarke squeezed her knee, “Hey, you did not kill these people … Radiation did. Nuclear reactors melting down. Not you. It was gonna happen no matter what you did.”Lexa sighed, “Yes …”Clarke squeezed Lexa’s knee again, “You created peace between the clans. Ended the clan wars. Saved so many people from having to fight … added years to their lives. Years of peace that they didn’t have to spend fighting. Years with their families and friends. Better quality of life. That matters.”Lexa sighed again.“And now you are giving everyone in the bunker immortality … and better quality lives too.”Lexa squeezed Clarke’s hand, “I am merely loaning Bekka my hands … but … thank you.”Clarke cleared her throat, “Well … those hands could be doing other stuff right now … so you’re definitely making a sacrifice …”Lexa grinned at her.“Is this enough programming for one day?” Clarke nudged her shoulder, “You’ve been at this for like … 12 hours straight.”Lexa rubbed her eyes, “Yes … The code I entered today will allow it to keep updating itself throughout the night … building out the new world to my set parameters.”Clarke stood up and pulled Lexa up to her feet, said, “Come on. Let’s go back to the house. Let me give you a massage and we can just relax.”Lexa took her hand as they walked, “I should update Aden about developments here …”Clarke nodded, “I brought the radio from the rover into the house in case you wanted to do that … Do you have to report to him though? He doesn’t have the flame. And he’ll know everything when you give it back.”“He will want to stay informed. And he is still Heda … even without the flame … The last commander …,” Lexa gave Clarke’s hand a little squeeze, “And I am merely yours … a simple farm Heda on loan to him from you.”Clarke grinned back at her, “Now you’re getting it.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The next morning, Clarke brought Lexa breakfast in bed.And then had Lexa for breakfast.“You are …,” Lexa panted breathlessly, “… making it … very difficult … to go back to work.”Clarke grinned up at her panting sweaty houman, crawled up from between her thighs and flopped down beside her, “I’m gonna raid the storerooms for salt while we’re here. And the closets for clothes and shoes for the kids … Then the lab for more paper. More first-aid stuff too, now that we’ve got more people on the farm. Look for some more flashlights and candles as well. You want anything?”Lexa grinned at her, “Perhaps flour and sugar for a cake. A wedding cake is customary.”Clarke grinned back at her.Part of her kinda wished she hadn’t ripped open the buttons of Lexa’s tuxedo shirt. She could sew them back on … but she figured Lexa would want to be bonded in her black leather Heda gear. It was like her second skin. And Clarke liked the idea of marrying Lexa in an outfit a lot like the one she’d first seen her in ... marrying Lexa in those black leather pants …Lexa looked up at the ceiling, “Before we leave … we should check the rover and make any needed repairs to it in the garage here. Take extra solar panels back with us to the valley as well … as backups … in case the rover’s panels ever need replacing. And there are other solar vehicles here too. We should bring one home as a backup.”Clarke’s forehead furrowed, “What garage? I never saw any vehicles here.”“It’s under the compound …,” Lexa said quietly, “… has vehicles and bicycles … so Bekka’s employees could explore the island when they were not working. We can take any vehicle we like.”“Can you drive though?” Clarke asked.Lexa smiled at her and tapped the side of her head, “I can now.”Clarke nodded, “It would be good to have a backup … in case the rover ever gets stuck somewhere … or breaks down …”Lexa looked up at the ceiling again, “Yes … and we must think of the future. What the youngens will need.”Clarke snuggled in beside her, her heart fluttering at the thought of the long future they had ahead of them with their kids in the valley, “It’s so nice here … convenient … all the electricity and showers and everything … but … it’s not home. I miss the valley. The kids. All the trees. The sounds of the birds in the morning.”Lexa squeeze her arm around her, “We should bring them here sometime. I would like to show them this place … The old world … What it was like before. It is part of the history of our people. And theirs … The home of the first commander. Tell them about Bekka.”Clarke smiled at the thought of the natblidas taking in all the wonders of the compound, “We can introduce them to the idea of a vacation.”“Perhaps in winter, when the crops and garden do not need so much tending to …,” Lexa smiled at the idea, “Perhaps Penn and I will invent a slow feeder for the chicken coop …”“I love this …,” Clarke sighed, “This life with you … the kids, the farm … every bit of it … Hearing you talk about chicken coops and crops …”“I will make us our valley in New Polis …,” Lexa said quietly, “Louwoda Kliron Kru will have their version of the valley … and we will have ours … with the farm … the village … even the chickens … So that when we take our chips … when our fight is over … we can be in our home … So our youngens can be there with us too … If your friends in space are able to make chips … they can come visit us on the farm as well. Meet Madi.”Clarke grinned at the thought, “I’d love that … I wanna know more about the chips though … before I decide to take it … before we … Before our time here is up …”Lexa looked at her, “I will tell you whatever you wish to know … but … I do hope you will come Clarke. Your life in my world was cut far too short … In New Polis, I could take you to visit all the clans … show you their cultures … take you to the sea … out on a boat … take you to the mountains … I will be able to manifest whatever you wish …”Clarke sat up and looked at her, “Those are gonna be the parameters of your chip? Like Aden’s allowing him to fly?“Lexa nodded, “Aden and Bekka and I will be administrators in New Polis. I will only be their backup … since I have had the flame … have had Bekka in my mind … understand how to build and adjust this new world if needed from the inside … What is possible and what is not.”Clarke’s eyebrows raised, “So what … you’ll be like … a god there?”Lexa grinned at her, “Being a god is not as glamorous as it might sound … And please … do not tell people … I … do not wish to spend eternity being chased by people asking me to give them even more things and new powers once they get used to the ones they already have.”Clarke shook her head, “I definitely won’t. I don’t wanna spend our afterlife with you being everyone else’s Heda again.“She laid back down on Lexa’s chest, “What sort of powers will people have?”“Simple ones …,” Lexa answered, “More control over their feelings. The ability to modify their appearance. Their age. Hair color. Beards. Tattoos.”“I would like a bunch of tattoos …,” Clarke grinned.Lexa kissed her forehead, “Then you will have them. And I will spoil you terribly if you let me.”“That does sound pretty great …,” Clarke sighed.“And our youngens will be there when their time comes …,” Lexa added, running her fingers through Clarke’s hair, “Madi will wish to go when it is her time too … It will be a new adventure for her. And I wish to show her all that she did not get to see of the world before the radiation …”Clarke smiled at the idea of Lexa showing Madi her world, “She’ll be all grown up by then.”“Yes …,” Lexa said quietly, “But she will still be our youngen. And you will still be my houman.”Lexa looked away, “Aden will be taking his chip when we return to the bunker … I can see his plan … He will take his chip to show everyone that taking the chips is safe. And … he wants his spirit to be there … in New Polis … to welcome them when they arrive … He will be like ALIE was in the City of Light … Will serve them there as the last commander when he meditates here.”Clarke sat up a little, “Will he still be … with us … as Aden … in the valley after he takes it?”Lexa nodded an looked back at her, “Yes … When he comes to the valley, he will split his time between life with us and New Polis. I … suspect that he will spend a great deal of his time in meditation … with his people in New Polis, but he will be with us as well … when he comes to the valley …”Lexa sighed a little.“Are you worried about him?” Clarke asked, “How it’ll change him when he takes it?”“I know the chips are safe …,” Lexa said quietly, “I have seen it myself from the work I am doing here. And Aden has already changed in many ways … Being Heda … having the flame … it is his dream fulfilled … Spending his life serving his people is his spirit’s highest calling … I am happy for him … I can see that he is happy. But … this is all just … very different from the future I imagined for him …”Lexa chewed her lip a little, “But in some ways … it is the same I suppose … I believed that in this life … I would build the coalition to give Aden a united people to rule … a stable peace that I would one day hand down to him … And … I guess … that is what I am doing now … in a way … Only I am creating that world instead of making it out of the world we were born into … Bekka and I are making that world for our people together … with lines of code … instead of through politics and war. The other commanders are helping me too … giving me their memories of the lands … the plants and creatures. We are building this world together. All the commanders. And Aden will have a very important role to play in that world … a role he is more than worthy of.”“It’s different …,” Clarke smiled, “But it’s kinda beautiful too.”Lexa smiled at her, “It is.”“How long will take before Aden can come to the valley?” Clarke asked.“It’s difficult to predict …,” Lexa answered, “These circumstances are … quite unusual … It comes down to each individual’s choice ... Whenever the vast majority of the people in the bunker have taken the chip. But at some point … he will no longer need to be with them in person to watch over them … there will be far more minds in New Polis than in the bunker … and they will be able to communicate with him no matter where he is.”Clarke nodded slowly, wrapping her mind around all that.She laid back down on Lexa’s chest, “It’s a beautiful idea … New Polis … giving the clans back their territories …”“Everyone in the bunker helped … had input into their new home …,” Lexa said, “It is … a shared vision … And it will be interesting to see … New Polis and the City of Light when it is added back after the modifications … the world of the clans and the more advanced city ALIE created … side by side … Well … there will be lands between them … but …”“No ALIE though … right?” Clarke asked.Lexa shook her head, “No. She will be removed completely. Her presence would be upsetting to the residents of New Polis after everything she put them through. This world will have a human administrator … Aden’s mind enhanced by the flame … not purely an AI. And the residents of the City of Light must be individuals again … not all of one mind doing ALIE’s bidding.”Clarke nodded at that.Lexa squeezed her arm around her, “We should get up … We have things to do and you have your call with your friends …”Clarke sat up with a sigh, “Yeah … You’ve got a world to build …”Lexa grinned up at her, “And you have cake ingredients to find.” —- At 10 a.m., Clarke was back in the workshop with Lexa, on her call with Space Kru.Enjoying the simple pleasure of catching up with her friends without a crisis looming over them. She could hear the relief in their voices that she was really okay. Felt relieved herself that her friends were doing well in space. They sounded so relaxed. Joked around with her. With each other. Had clearly become a tight knit little family unit during their years together. Emori had apparently become Raven’s second. Was learning all about the space station and computers. Had even been out on a spacewalk.Lexa answered their questions about their friends in the bunker. Filled Bellamy in on Octavia and how she was doing from her own years in the bunker with her and what Aden knew about what she’d been up to more recently. Octavia was an even fiercer warrior now. Had continued her training as Indra’s second. She and Lincoln spent far more time with Trikru than Skykru. But Octavia still had friends in Skykru. Marcus. Miller. She’d spent a fair amount of time in the clinic chatting with Abby too while she got patched up from whatever latest injury she had incurred from her sparring. Had become close with Niylah and Gaia as well.Bellamy was clearly relieved to hear that she was doing okay. That she had friends. That she still had Lincoln. He wasn’t at all surprised to hear that Octavia had even sparred with Lexa a few times.“She’s fearless …,” Bellamy’s sighing voice said, but Clarke could hear the smile in it.“She will be glad to know that you are well …,” Lexa said, “Send me any messages you have for your people in the bunker and I will give them to Aden to pass along to them.”“So … you’re really not Heda anymore?” Echo asked.Lexa glanced at Clarke, “Clarke made a very strong case for retirement.”Clarke folded her arms, “And Aden refused to give her back the flame when she tried to go back to the bunker.”“A coup …,” Echo’s sly voice said.“A … gently forced retirement …,” Lexa answered, “But it is not unwelcome.”Clarke told them a little about the farm and the kids while Lexa sent Monty information on techniques for improving the taste of farmed algae from the backed up copy of the internet on Becca’s computers.Lexa patiently answered everyone’s questions about New Polis and about the new chips she was making while her fingers flew across the keyboard coding.Echo in particular seemed very interested in the idea of being able to experience the pre-praimfaya world in her mind while in meditation. Apparently Monty and Harper had introduced Echo to video games on the Ring, which made a simulated reality less of a foreign concept.And from the questions Echo asked about what would be in New Polis … the kinds of forests that would be there … the plants … the kinds of animals that would be there … whether there would be seasons and rain … how the rivers and sunshine would feel … Clarke got the impression that she missed the ground the most out of all of Space Kru.That she had been grieving the loss of Nature the way she and Lexa had.That she was homesick.Homesickness was a concept that Clarke had only fully come to grasp now that she had a real home in the valley.She was already feeling it, just being away from the valley for a few days.The rest of Space Kru was way more interested in things like how the food would taste in New Polis than what the world itself would be like. The space algae they ate must’ve tasted pretty awful …Raven had already started looking for components to make chips based on the material specifications Lexa had sent, and Monty and Harper had volunteered to help her.Just from the way they were all talking about New Polis, Clarke was already sure that almost all of them would take the chip if they could find the parts necessary to make them.And she was more onboard with the idea herself after hearing Lexa talk about it.It was appealing. The idea of exploring that world together for eternity. Living on the farm there. Being able to read books again …Lexa assured her that she would have the entire cannon of human literature to choose from … And that she herself was quite keen on the idea of sitting in front of a fire together, under a blanket in their little house in the simulated village, reading aloud to one another.It was a beautiful picture in Clarke’s mind … having Lexa, the kids, the valley for eternity like that … But some part of her resisted the idea of taking the chip. Maybe because for once, there was no other place she’d rather be than exactly where she was, with exactly who she was with in the present moment. For once, she wasn’t running from anything, or toward anything. Everything she wanted was right there with her in the present and she felt so fully and perfectly content. She didn’t want to think about the future, or eternity. Wanted nothing more than her small, blissfully quiet life in the present.And in any case, she had years and years to think it over. Decades. Longer than she’s been alive even.But there was something appealing about the idea of death too, the finality of it, the peace of it, that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.She’d stopped being afraid of her own death a long time ago.And for now, living in the valley, in Nature, simply being part of Nature’s infinite cycle of death and rebirth seemed beautiful. Seemed like enough.Maybe that idea was only appealing to her though.Maybe she really was Wanheda after all. Had a different relationship with death than those around her, who seemed to jump at the chance for immortality.But she knew it was a deeply personal decision … one she’d need to make for herself when the time came … based on whoever she was at that point in her life.She’d talk to Lexa about it … Have long conversations with her about it … Lexa would understand. There was nothing they couldn’t talk about. And there was so much comfort in knowing that.Lexa disappeared to get the chip maker while Clarke chatted with her friends, learning more about their day to day lives in space. How Echo had been training them all to fight for exercise. How they passed the time. How they had taken over the biggest and best bedrooms in their part of the station and made them more cozy with all the stuff that had been left behind by the Arkers when they’d gone to the ground. She learned that Murphy was still himself … had been rotating through cycles of banishment and reunion with the rest of Space Kru. But he sounded happy that Clarke was alive and well.Out of all of Space Kru, he was the one who sounded the most reluctant about taking the chip. Clarke was a little surprised that she and Murphy had that in common.Monty said he was working on convincing Murphy to complete the therapy modules on the computers in medical.And Clarke admitted that she could probably use a few therapy modules herself. Could probably use all the therapy modules they had … which got a chuckle out of Murphy.When they’d finished their talk and the transmission with Space Kru ended, Lexa left the computer running, the lines of code scrolling endlessly across the screens as the updates automatically rewrote the City of Light’s programming, turning skyscrapers into forests and villages, populating it with simulated creatures and plants and sunshine and rivers.Lexa led Clarke through a key code locked doorway and down stairs to a huge underground garage beneath Becca’s compound. It had a few motorcycles, which they both agreed were far too dangerous to bring back to the valley with Madi around …They walked past a row of solar vehicles and picked out the biggest, toughest looking SUV there. It wasn’t nearly as rugged looking as the rover, but it seemed substantial enough when they inspected it. And Becca recommended that one in particular.They loaded it up with some bicycles that were leaned against the wall for the kids that had nobby tires and looked like they might work on some of the trails in the village.And also because Lexa asserted that, “Penn must see a bicycle.”Clarke couldn’t help but agree. Penn would have a lot of fun learning about the gears and mechanics of it.And it would be nice to have a faster way to move around the valley, as the rover could really only go a little ways in before there were too many trees to drive.Lexa set up the SUV to charge at the garage’s charging station and then opened the outer door so Clarke could bring the rover inside. They ran every diagnostic check on the two vehicles that they possibly could with the equipment in the garage, popped open the hoods and got to work doing maintenance, cleaning the rover, making repairs, replacing a part of the rover’s solar panels that had gotten cracked, under the guidance of the vast store of knowledge in the flame and on the garage’s computers.When Clarke rolled out from under the rover and sat up to wipe off her hands with a rag, Lexa was leaned back against the side of the SUV, reading its owner’s manual, sipping from a cold glass of ice water. A second cold glass of water was waiting on the hood for Clarke.But … that … wasn’t really what Clarke was thirsty for … because Lexa had apparently stripped down to just her jeans and black sports bra to keep her shirt from getting messed up by all grease and dirt from her repair work, had streaks of black here and there on her arms and chest, and was looking … a lot more tan and muscly and gorgeous than Clarke could really handle … with her forehead furrowed prettily in concentration as she read the pages, her wavy chestnut hair back in a ponytail, her beautiful braids adorning the right side of her head, the big black tribal tattoo on her muscly arm fully visible, her strong shoulders and rolling abs sparkling with sweat here and there … looking … extremely lickable …Clarke was on her feet walking over to her before she even knew what she was doing.She stepped over to the hood by Lexa, picked up the icy cold glass and took a sip.Lexa didn’t even look up from the manual in her hands … was … clearly like … studying it … carefully reading through each page … learning it … so … she’d know everything she could about the vehicle, how to maintain it … for their family … and … their future … so she could … take care of them …
Ugh.
Lexa’s industriousness was still one of Clarke’s biggest turn ons.But Lexa doing stuff for their family?She had such a weakness for that.Clarke poured some of the water out of the glass onto her left hand … then did the same with her right …Lexa glanced over at the sound of the water hitting the concrete floor, but went straight back to reading.Clarke wiped off her hands on the back of her tank top, figuring it was relatively clean … then stepped over to Lexa …Plucked the manual out of her hands … and watched Lexa’s eyes trail after it as she put it on the hood.She stepped in between Lexa’s feet and husked out, “You busy?”Lexa looked back at her wordlessly … and then cast a long look over at the thick manual on the hood … like she was just dying to get back to it … like it was a real page turner …Clarke rolled her eyes.
This nerd.
This nerd she was so totally in love with.But she was not gonna be outdone by a fucking manual.Lexa shifted on her feet a little, like she was just about to reach for it, and Clarke stepped right up to Lexa, pinning her against the side of the SUV with her chest, the metal door creaking as Lexa’s back pressed against it.Lexa pressed her lips together and looked back at her with this … look on her face … like having to choose between Clarke and the manual was causing her a mini existential crisis.Clarke glanced down at Lexa’s lips and then back up to meet her gaze, “So are you? … Busy?”Lexa looked over at the fucking manual again.Clarke reached up and guided Lexa’s chin back to face her with a gentle finger, pressed her chest against Lexa’s a little more firmly and watched Lexa swallow.“Hmm …,” Clarke hummed, leaning in a little, her eyes on Lexa’s lips, nudged the tip of her nose, whispered against her lips, just an inch away, “Too busy?”“It’s … very interesting …,” Lexa whispered back.Clarke leaned back and arched an eyebrow at her, then flicked open the button on Lexa’s jeans … started slowly sliding down the zipper, “I’m sure it’s fascinating …”Lexa swallowed again, “It … It may not seem so but-“Lexa stifled a grunt as Clarke’s hand slid into her pants, her palm pressing against Lexa’s soft cotton underwear. Fingers teasing against the warmth.“Clarke I’m … I’m all sweaty …,” Lexa’s breathy voice hiccuped a little from the feeling of Clarke’s hand slowly massaging between her thighs.“Mm …,” Clarke mumbled and leaned in, pressed her wet tongue against the corner of Lexa’s neck, sucked at the soft skin, gave a low satisfied hum at the sweet, salty, slightly cinnamony taste of Lexa, felt a shiver run through her. Mumbled, “Yeah … you are sweaty …,” started slowly licking a little higher up the side of Lexa’s neck, “Wanna get even sweatier?”Lexa’s breath hitched in her throat as Clarke’s left hand started massaging in a little rhythm between her thighs, against her rapidly dampening underwear, as Clarke sucked a dark little mark onto the side of her throat.“You taste so good …,” Clarke mumbled against her neck, and slid her other hand between them, slowly walked her fingertips up each one of Lexa’s abs, like she was counting them, felt them jump pleasingly in response to her touch, gently scratched at them a little and heard Lexa growl.“You like that?” Clarke breathed hotly against the side of her neck, her hand massaging a little more firmly between Lexa’s thighs, feeling the wet cotton against her fingers, “I think you do …” started pressing soft kitten licks just under Lexa’s jaw.Lexa let out a shaky breath, “Clarke … I … I should … umm …”“Tell me to stop and I will …,” Clarke whispered against her neck and pressed a soft kiss against hot skin, “Tell me to do anything you want and I’ll do it …”Clarke felt a shudder rumble through Lexa’s chest. Could feel Lexa’s heart thudding against her own. Her right hand scratched against Lexa’s abs again, her left hand still massaging against Lexa’s now destroyed underwear.“Clarke …,” Lexa panted, squirming a little against Clarke’s chest.“… or you could just keep saying that …,” Clarke whispered and trailed her tongue up the middle of Lexa’s throat, reveling in the taste of her, “… say it just like that … a little louder maybe … over and over …”“Fuck … Clarke …,” Lexa panted.Clarke licked at Lexa’s earlobe and whispered, “Is that an order Heda?” started sucking it a little, felt another shiver run through Lexa’s body, “‘Cause I’ll do it … I’ll do anything you say …”Lexa’s hand reached up and pulled Clarke’s into a hot, wet kiss, growling into it.Clarke poked her tongue into Lexa’s mouth just a little, giving her warm, slow, pillowy soft kisses, felt Lexa’s tongue slide against it as she shifted the angle of their kiss.Clarke’s hand slid up Lexa’s abs to her black sports bra as their kisses got deeper, slid her hand under the stretchy material, massaging Lexa’s soft breast, tracing her thumb over the stiff peak of Lexa’s nipple.She pushed Lexa’s soaked underwear out of the way, her warm hand massaging Lexa’s drenched folds.“Tell me what you want …,” Clarke panted against her lips, “My mouth … my hands … my anything you want …”Lexa recaptured Clarke’s lips and her hand slotted in between Clarke’s thighs and gave a firm squeeze.Clarke groaned into the kiss and panted out, “You can … you can have that …,” having to concentrate to form the words, “You can have anything you want … but … you first this time …”Lexa growled and pulled Clark into a deeper rolling kiss, slid her hand up over Clarke’s breast, started kneading it, her other hand giving another firm squeeze between Clarke’s thighs.A hard shudder flooded through Clarke’s body at the feeling, at the order Lexa was giving her to let Lexa fuck her … which was … an extremely tempting offer. Having Lexa’s hand squeezing between her thighs made her keenly aware of the puddle that had formed in her own underwear. And her walls were already squeezing greedily in anticipation from just the taste of Lexa’s sweat … But Lexa was always so generous in that respect … getting Clarke off first, or both of them together. So rarely put herself first. In anything.Lexa growled against Clarke’s lips, her tongue rolling against Clarke’s in invitation.“I’m here for you …,” Clarke panted against her lips, her hand still rubbing deliciously between Lexa’s thighs, her other hand still massaging Lexa’s breast, gave her a soft kiss, “I wanna take care of you … if you’ll let me.”Lexa pressed her lips together … and then gave a shallow nod. Wordlessly slid her hand down into her pants over Clarke’s hand, gave it a gentle squeeze of encouragement, then slid both her hands just a little under the hem of Clarke’s tank top, started teasing her thumbs and fingertips lightly across Clarke’s stomach in a way that sent little shivers through her.Clarke shoved her knee forward a little and to the right, pushing Lexa’s knee out a little wider, widening Lexa’s stance, started rocking her hand between Lexa’s thighs, panting against Lexa’s lips, her palm rubbing in firm circles over the softness over Lexa’s clit, giving her just the right amount of pressure, her fingertips tracing across Lexa’s soaked entrance, groaning at the feeling of slick dripping down her fingers. She pushed forward, caught Lexa in a breathless kiss, could feel Lexa’s muscly thighs clenching against the sides of her hand, could feel Lexa’s hands sliding higher up her stomach under her tank top, just under her breasts.“Lexa …,” Clarke panted and pushed forward again, shoving her tongue into Lexa’s mouth, the metal door creaking behind Lexa’s back.She leaned back a little and looked Lexa in the eye. Lexa gave her a little nod and Clarke leaned in and kissed her again, slid her fingers inside.And fuck, Lexa felt so velvety soft and wet and fucking amazing squeezing around her fingers that Clarke’s whole body shuddered. Her fingers started pumping in in a little rhythm as her kisses devoured, as her fingertips circled against the little pillowy spot inside, her palm rubbing firmly over Lexa’s clit.Lexa let out a shaky moan, “Clarke …”Clarke’s hips bucked forward at the sound,  shoving Lexa hard against the side of the SUV, her pumping fingers working a little faster, her hand absolutely covered in warm dripping slick, her other hand still kneading Lexa’s breast under her sports bra, pulling more shaky moans out of her.Lexa changed the angle of their kiss and pulled up the front of Clarke’s tank top all the way, squeezed Clarke’s breasts roughly with both hands and Clarke gasped into her mouth. Her hips bucked forward again and she felt Lexa’s walls squeeze down and shudder around her fingers.Clarke’s hips bucked again and Lexa started squeezing her breasts harder, kneading them roughly, her thumbs flicking across Clarke’s so hard nipples, her walls squeezing and sucking around Clarke’s fingers in a little rhythm.“Clarke …,” Lexa panted against her lips, “Clarke …”Clarke’s hips bucked again.And god, Clarke right on the brink of coming herself from the sound of Lexa breathily panting her name, from the delicious way Lexa’s walls were rolling and squeezing and shuddering in little waves around her fingers, from the feeling of Lexa’s hands roughly playing with her breasts, from the whole idea of fucking Lexa up against the side of a vehicle like this, the two of them all sweaty and dirty, her hand shoved down Lexa’s pants, pumping into her, her shirt hiked up all the way, her other hand shoved up under Lexa’s sports bra.If the Clarke who had first walked into Lexa’s tent years ago could see them now …“Clarke …,” Lexa groaned, and then sucked in a breath, the muscles in her chest all tensing at once, her walls clenching down hard and fluttering in fast waves around Clarke’s fingers.Clarke’s fingertips swirled against the soft spot inside just a little more firmly, and Lexa’s walls clenched so tight around her fingers. Lexa squeezed Clarke’s breasts hard. Pinched Clarke’s left nipple and Clarke’s hips bucked again, shoving forward, shoving Lexa’s back against door, and Lexa let out a long low groan, her walls spasming and jerking around Clarke’s fingers, spilling into Clarke’s hand.Lexa pinched Clarke’s right nipple and all of a sudden Clarke was coming too, groaning, hips bucking. And without even thinking, Clarke’s hands shifted their positions, slid out of Lexa’s pants, out from under her sports bra, reached down and grabbed Lexa’s ass, lifted her up a little. Her mouth found Lexa’s shoulder and bit down as her hips started grinding in, mindlessly fucking Lexa against the door.“Mmmfff … Clarke …,” Lexa panted out.Clarke growled into Lexa’s shoulder, her teeth still firmly in place, her hips still rutting in desperately between Lexa’s thighs, the muscles in her arms flexing and  straining with the effort of holding Lexa up.Clarke’s walls were squeezing and shuddering and clenching so fucking hard from the feeling of Lexa’s warmth pressed against her chest, from the sound of Lexa’s breathy panting in her ear, from feeling of rutting in between her thighs like this, from the memory of Lexa’s walls squeezing and clenching so deliciously around her fingers and filling her hand with slick. She felt half crazed. Like an animal. Like she could barely breathe. Lexa’s arms and legs squeezed around her and Clarke’s mouth left Lexa’s shoulder and latched onto the side of Lexa’s throat, open mouthed, tongue wriggling, sucking a massive purple hickey onto the side of Lexa’s neck.The rhythm of Clarke’s grinding hips faltered, she pumped in hard, once, twice, and then a third time, hard shudders wriggling through her entire body, sucking desperately against the side of Lexa’s throat, moaning into the taste of Lexa’s sweaty skin as she felt everything in her clench, and then a warm, shuddering climax quaked through her entire body in pulsing waves. Her thighs jerking, her walls rolling and fluttering so hard as a gush of slick poured out of her in a flood, joining the puddle that had formed in her soaked underwear clinging between her thighs.Clarke slumped forward against Lexa, pining her fully to the door with all her weight, her head on Lexa’s shoulder, panting against her neck, little shudders still wriggling through her. Her hands still gripping Lexa’s ass, holding her up.Lexa’s hand was in her hair, her voice soft in Clarke’s ear. After a moment, Clarke raised her head, leaned over and kissed her slowly, deeply, the little shudders still wriggling through her.“I … what … what happened …,” Clarke panted out deliriously.“Shhhh … you’re okay …,” Lexa cooed, soft and reassuring against Clarke’s lips. Hand stroking gently through her hair.“No … this was … ‘sposed to be … for you …,” Clarke panted.“Me first right?”  Lexa said lightly, “You got me Clarke … I was first …”Clarke grumbled.That was technically true … she did get Lexa off first … by like … a few seconds … and then lost her mind and got off again herself.That wasn’t the mission.Clarke grumbled again and took a big step to the right, Lexa still in her arms, and lifted Lexa up, deposited her on the hood of the SUV.“You really are much stronger these days …,” Lexa smiled at her from her new seat on the hood, sounding a lot more composed than Clarke would have preferred, especially compared to her panting and dazed self.Clarke reached out with both hands and tugged Lexa’s still open pants and underwear halfway down her legs, crouched down under Lexa’s legs dangling off the side of the hood and popped up between them, hoisting Lexa’s thighs onto her shoulders, Lexa bare thighs open and glistening before her.Lexa leaned back on her elbows and gave her a grin, “I still think I need a shower … even more so now … but ….”That ‘but’ was all Clarke needed to hear.She leaned in, started pressing soft, slow, tonguey kisses across Lexa’s thighs, sliding her tongue up Lexa’s inner thighs, growling as she tasted the salty sweet sweat on her skin, slid her tongue through Lexa’s dripping folds, moaning at the taste of her.Started devouring her houman until Lexa’s hands were fisting her hair, until Lexa was moaning out Clarke’s name between fast, panting breaths, until Lexa’s thighs were twitching and flexing and trembling against her ears.Until Lexa was desperately pumping her hips against Clarke’s mouth, against the soft glide of Clarke’s swirling tongue against her clit, hands tightly gripping Clarke’s hair, until she was coming so hard against Clarke’s soft devouring mouth and groaning so loud.Clarke’s tongue trailed softly through the mess, long, slow, soft licks, her hands giving Lexa’s thighs gentle reassuring squeezes, growling quietly to herself, low and animal, and then sucked a trail of dark little hickeys onto Lexa’s thighs as Lexa panted on the hood, looking up at the ceiling through blurry unfocused eyes, lost in a daze.“Love you …,” Clarke mumbled against Lexa’s thigh just before sucking another dark mark onto it, feeling the muscle twitch pleasingly under her wriggling tongue.Clarke pressed soft little kisses across Lexa’s folds, and then after a minute, teased just the very tip of her tongue through Lexa’s slit.Lexa’s hips jerked on the hood and she laughed out, “Clarke!”And the sound of Lexa’s laugh was so light and beautiful in her ears that Clarke’s eyes prickled with tears.“I surrender … I surrender …,” Lexa panted out breathlessly, the words so full of affection Clarke’s heart felt like it would explode.Clarke pressed a kiss against Lexa’s thigh and shook her head, “No me. I surrender. This was me offering my official surrender.”Lexa laughed brightly again and Clarke nuzzled her nose against Lexa’s thigh, reached up and scratched at Lexa’s abs, “Do you accept?”“Do you want me to accept?” Lexa answered.Clarke stood up straight, Lexa’s knees on her shoulders and shook her head, grinning at her, “I’m … kinda hoping you’ll make me work for it more.”Lexa grinned at her, “At a later time perhaps.”Clarke sighed in disappointment and crouched, got herself out from under Lexa’s legs, helped Lexa down from the hood, set her down on her feet, pulled up her pants, leaned in and then pulled back a little as she gave her one soft kiss after another, her hands back on Lexa’s ass.She leaned back, eyes inspecting the place on Lexa’s shoulder where she’d been biting her earlier, could see an arch of redness where the points of her teeth had been, but by some miracle, it didn’t look like she’d broken the skin, minimal damage. The side of Lexa’s throat on the other hand was a complete mess where she’d been desperately sucking against it, open mouthed, in a lust fueled haze when she’d had Lexa up against the side of the SUV. She ran her thumb gently over the massive hickey that was almost as big as the palm of her hand, that was such a dark shade of purple it was almost black.Clarke ran her thumb across it very lightly again and met Lexa’s gaze, “It’s pretty bad …” she said to Lexa’s sparkly green eyes, “Does it hurt?”Lexa smiled and shook her head a little, “It aches a little … like a bruise … but it’s fine.”Clarke glanced down at the massive hickey again and felt her heart flutter in her chest, chewed her lower lip a little, and then looked back at Lexa, “It’s … really big … I’m sorry.”Lexa looped her arms around Clarke’s waist and grinned, “No you’re not.”Clarke pressed her lips together to hide her smile and shook her head a little.Lexa chuckled at her and leaned in, rested her forehead against Clarke’s, and after a moment, said quietly “I never thought I would have this …”Clarke leaned back and looked at her, “What … Happiness?”Lexa cheeks flushed, adorably, like she was embarrassed to have said it.Clarke smiled at her softly, ran a hand through Lexa’s hair, and leaned in a little, whispered, “Well … you better get used to it.”Lexa gave her a little smile and Clarke couldn’t help but kiss her again.She took Lexa’s hand.Led her upstairs.Made them something to eat, shooting her little grins as Lexa watched her move around the kitchen, her elbow on the counter, her chin in her hand, her green eyes sparkly with affection as she watched Clarke work. Looking at her like watching Clarke heat up prepackaged food in a microwave and pull napkins and silverware out of drawers was the most heartwarming thing ever.Clarke scooted her chair right next to Lexa’s so she could press her leg against hers while they ate. Didn’t want to give up physical contact with her for the duration of an entire meal. Was barely able to stop herself from feeding Lexa herself, by hand, one bite at a time, just to have an excuse to be looking at Lexa’s face and seeing Lexa’s soft expression, filled with affection for her.When their meal was done, Clarke led her upstairs by the hand. Turned on the hot water to fill the big circular bathtub. Got down on her knees on the bathroom floor and carefully removed Lexa’s shoes. Her socks. Her pants. Slid Lexa’s ruined underwear down her legs, proud of how messy and slick they were, the dampness they left on her palm when she squeezed them in her fist just before tossing them over her shoulder.She stood up and carefully pulled Lexa’s sports bra up over her arms, pulled off her own shirt and pants, toed off her shoes and socks. And then pressed herself against her houman’s warm skin. Held her. Sighing dreamily against Lexa’s neck. Nuzzling against it with her nose. Her heart feeling so warm and fluttery and full from feeling of being in her houman’s arms. At the feeling of being home. That space between Lexa’s arms would always be her home.Lexa whispered in her ear that the tub was almost full and Clarke grudgingly took a step back, took Lexa’s hand instead. Stepped with her into the warm water and turned off the faucet. Took a seat on Lexa’s lap and got to work cleaning the sweat and dirt off her houman with slow, appreciative, soapy hands while Lexa told her about the vast underground aquifer far below the house, stuff about water tables and pumps that Clarke nodded along to as her hands worked … only really paying attention to the sound of Lexa’s voice … how relaxed she sounded … how at ease she sounded … how comfortable and happy … her heart squeezing in her chest at the thought that she had made Lexa so … with her love, with the life they had together … Even if maybe a part of that happiness in Lexa’s voice was coming from how ingenious she thought the compound’s plumbing system was … Clarke didn’t mind. It probably was ingenious … she didn’t really know … would probably never know … couldn’t really pay attention when Lexa’s soft curves were under her hands as they gently worked at cleaning away any and every last trace of dirt, and then just wandered, slowly exploring every line and curve of her houman with soft touches, taking in the wonders of her body with a kind of animal satisfaction, the low ache growing between her thighs.Lexa was mid sentence when Clarke pressed a soft slow kiss to her lips, and whatever else Lexa knew about plumbing was lost.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Clarke woke up the next morning to the feeling of Lexa’s warm wet tongue swirling against her nipple and grinned to herself. Eyes still closed.Whatever those changes were that Becca and Aden had made to the flame for Lexa, they were highly appreciated.When Lexa had had the flame in the past, she was so focused on getting to work when she woke up. Her head was so full of agendas and plans for everything she wanted to accomplish in the hours ahead. Mornings like these had been a rarity. And Lexa had worked such long days back then too. Late into the night more often than not.Lexa was still working a lot now. On their first full day at the compound, she’d been in front of a computer coding for 12 hours straight. But then only 8 hours the next day. Apparently, Lexa wasn’t going to be creating every detail of New Polis herself. Much of the process was automated, the program populating the contents of the new simulated reality based on the parameters Lexa had entered with her lines of code on her first workday at the compound.Clarke had been … kinda incredulous when Lexa had told her Becca’s suggestion that their time at the house together could be like their honeymoon when they’d first arrived.She had fully expected Lexa’s single-minded focus on work to return. Had expected Lexa’s emotions and expressions to become far more measured and restrained too … like they used to be.And they were a bit more measured. But she could see that Lexa was still feeling everything. That her emotions weren’t as dulled as before.There were other little changes she’d noticed too … besides the obvious … Lexa becoming a programmer overnight …The way Lexa spoke was different when she had the flame. Her vocabulary was different … more like Clarke’s … more like someone from Skykru … Maybe that was Becca’s influence, since Becca and Lexa were spending so many hours working together now, having wordless conversations in Lexa’s mind as her fingers flew across the keyboard.Lexa had said ‘Love you’ instead of ‘Ai hod yu in’. Had called her ‘Honey’.Or maybe the flame just helped Lexa shift her thoughts into that way of expressing herself because Clarke was around … because that was Clarke’s way of speaking … Just like Lexa shifted into the clan dialect of the person she was speaking to when she’d been Heda in Polis.The way Lexa spoke when she’d come to the valley without the flame was so much more like the way she had spoken to Indra and Lincoln and other Trikru … More like the way she had sometimes spoken to Clarke behind closed doors during their time together in Polis. The way she spoke to her at the end of a long day … when she was tired. The way she spoke when they were in bed together.Lexa still had a vastly more expansive vocabulary in English than any Grounder Clarke had ever met … but … without the flame, she spoke more simply. Was quieter. But each word she did speak carried more meaning. More significance. The meaning wasn’t only in the words themselves either, like the way Skykru talked, spelling out every little thing explicitly. A lot more of the meaning came from Lexa’s tone of voice, the expression on her face when she spoke.Or she spoke without words altogether, like the way Lexa was now growling against Clarke’s breast as she sucked her very hard nipple … which Clarke’s slick covered thighs seemed to understand perfectly well.The meaning crystal clear.Clarke was about to have a very good morning …Lexa’s mouth shifted to Clarke’s other nipple, sucking it eagerly, sending a shiver through Clarke’s body, making her slick thighs rub together.Oh, she was about to have an excellent morning.Clarke’s breaths started coming out more ragged, her heart pounding in her chest.But she didn’t open her eyes.Not yet.And after a full minute of Clarke silently enjoying her attentions, Lexa growled menacingly against her breast at the deception.Clarke smirked and opened her eyes, “Someone’s eager this morning.”Lexa released her nipple and said in her rough morning voice, “I am making amends … for my mistake.”Clarke’s forehead furrowed, “What mistake?”Lexa shifted her head back onto her pillow and looked at Clarke softly, then ghosted her fingers across Clarke’s breast with feathery light touches.Clarke hissed.“I was too rough yesterday …,” Lexa said quietly, “You are bruised.”Lexa pulled her hand away but Clarke’s hand shot up grabbed her wrist, tried to pull her hand back to her breast.But Lexa resisted, her hand just sort of hovered there, close enough that Clarke could feel the warmth of it, but not touching her.Clarke grinned at her, tightened her grip on Lexa’s wrist, “If your aim was to make me come … and then lose my mind, then it really wasn’t a mistake at all.”Lexa chewed her lip a little, then said quietly, “I didn’t have to hurt you to do that.”Clarke chuckled, “Yeah well … I’m guessing you’ve still got my teeth marks on your shoulder … so … we’re two of a kind. No complaints here …”She tugged at Lexa’s wrist again and Lexa very gently put her warm hand on Clarke’s breast.She lightly traced her thumb across it and Clarke groaned in her closed mouth.Lexa started to pull her hand back, but Clarke gripped her wrist tighter, holding it in place.“It hurts …,” Lexa said quietly.Clarke smirked, “Yeah but like … in a good way … sensitive … achy … like that hickey I gave you …”Lexa shifted a little on her pillow and her eyes slipped down to Clarke’s breast, her thumb lightly tracing over the bruises, sending little shudders through Clarke’s body.“You can see where my hands were …,” Lexa said quietly, “… my fingers …”Clarke’s thighs clenched at that mental image.“Yeah well …,” Clarke panted a little as Lexa’s thumb continued to lightly graze her skin, “I was surrendering, remember? I’m yours now. So … I probably should have your hand prints all over me …”Lexa’s green eyes flicked up to hers and she made a little growling sound.Clarke’s eyes fell to Lexa’s lips, “And … if memory serves … I’m still in the process of surrendering to you … you haven’t accepted yet …”“Perhaps I should have demanded your surrender from the very start …,” Lexa looked back at her, her eyes pools of black, “Taken you as my prisoner … saved us both a lot of time and hassle.”Clarke squeezed Lexa’s hand harder onto her breast, the pressure of her bruises igniting a matching ache between her thighs, “Maybe you should have … I was thinking about that yesterday … If our past selves could see us now … all over each other like that … up against the SUV …”Lexa grinned back at her, “My invitation to Polis would have been much more firm.”Clarke’s dark eyes flicking down to Lexa’s lips, and she husked out “Well you’ve got me now … at your mercy … wanting to surrender … What are you gonna do with me? Now that you’ve got my total submission …”Lexa pursed her lips for a moment, looking back at her, considering, then said in that high handed Heda tone Clarke loved, “If yesterday has taught us anything, it is that while you say you surrender, and that you will serve Heda, you’re actions show that you still pursue your own interests. Perhaps you need to be taught to serve.”A sharp pang of arousal twisted below Clarke’s belly and she breathed out, “Yeah …”Lexa arched an eyebrow at her, “Yeah?”“Yes Heda,” Clarke answered, a lot more breathily than she had intended, her thighs squirming under the sheets.Lexa raised her chin a little, looked back at her with appraising eyes, glancing at Clarke’s now rosy cheeks, her flushed lips, her dark eyes.“I require a shower,” Lexa stated.Clarke pressed her lips together to hide her grin.Great.She loved bathing Lexa.As Lexa was well aware.Lexa whipped off her sheet and said, “Give me 3 minutes, then come. Serve me.”And then she got up.Clarke sat up a little in bed to appreciate the sight of Lexa striding to the bathroom completely naked, though now she had some bruises on her back from Clarke’s vigorous fucking against the SUV. A swell of pride bloomed in Clarke’s chest at the sight of the marks … which … maybe shouldn’t have been her first reaction …  but when she searched inside herself … she didn’t find any worry or regret there … God knew Lexa had endured far worse injuries for far less worthy aims than her houman’s pleasure.And despite Lexa’s considerate concern over her chest, it wasn’t like they’d never played rough before … Not the same as they’d done the day before … but still …Clarke flopped down on the bed when Lexa disappeared behind the door and looked up at the ceiling as she counted down the minutes in her mind.Her fingers fidgeting impatiently on her stomach.Ugh.This was gonna be so fun.But her imagination kept interrupting her counting.
What was Lexa gonna do with her?
Yesterday, her goal had been to please Lexa, and she had, before and after she’d gotten distracted by her own burning need.And Lexa had indulged her of course.But now they were both playing by the same rules.Rules Lexa would herself enforce to ensure that Clarke behaved herself and … was … good … for her …Ugh.Clarke’s slick thighs squirmed together again.She’d had exactly zero inclination to play submission games in bed before she’d met Lexa … but Lexa was so … Lexa …The idea of playing those games with her had always been ridiculously appealing … had been an appealing idea for … far longer than she would care to admit …Though she’d had to prompt Lexa into it a little at first … But of course Lexa had … taken the reigns …When the bathroom door opened, Clarke hopped out of bed, guessing the time was up … she wasn’t sure …When she strolled in, she noticed a tall cabinet door was open on the wall … a cabinet door that she thought was a wall when she’d stayed in Becca’s room years ago … but that was apparently another hidden compartment … like the one in the footstool downstairs … and the hidden drawers around the bottom of the bed.Lexa pulled out three bottles and a floofy puff ball looking thing that Clarke guessed was for scrubbing bodies.“Take a few moments to familiarize yourself with my preparations …” Lexa said and then stepped out the door.Clarke completed her own morning rituals … washed her hands, brushed her teeth and then read the bottles. Figured out what they were for. Figured out her plan. Looking forward to getting her hands on Lexa.She stepped back over to the door to letLexa in, and for the first time, looked at  herself in the mirror and oh … yeah … Clarke could see very clearly exactly where Lexa’s hands had been the day before.She slid her hands up her stomach, up under her breasts, put her hands over where Lexa’s had been and squeezed, felt the delicious ache of the bruises Lexa had left on her, her mind instantly flashing back to how they’d gotten there … Lexa pressed against the door, Clarke’s fingers buried deep inside her, Lexa panting out her name, losing it enough to leave those marks.And damn … she was even prouder of the marks Lexa had left on her than the ones she had left on Lexa.She ran her hands through her wild morning hair, and then pulled open the door.Lexa seemed busy in the closet. Clarke cleared her throat a few times, hopefully loud enough for Lexa to hear, and eventually, Lexa strolled out of the closet and into the bathroom without even glancing at her. Took a seat on the edge of the tub and told Clarke to undo her braids, which Clarke was more than happy to do. Got to work untying the braids that she herself had put in Lexa’s hair a few days prior, feeling Lexa’s soft waves slide through her fingers, allowed herself a few sneaky scratches at Lexa’s scalp, which she knew Lexa liked, but that Lexa feigned complete indifference to, in her traditional Heda fashion, like Clarke was just her attendant … which was … honestly a new experience for Clarke she realized then … That was … the way Lexa looked at other people … or rather … didn’t look at them … or sort of … looked through them …But Lexa had never truly ignored her when they were alone together … like she was now … or looked at her like she didn’t matter …Even during their first day of knowing each other, Lexa’s expressions toward her had gone from mild annoyance to growling intimidation, and then from disdain to … something approaching curiosity. Never indifference. And from the next day onwards, Lexa had looked at her with this quiet, dark intensity that made Clarke’s insides just burn.It was … Lexa trying to intimidate her, she’d thought at first. And that made perfect sense under the circumstances they were in back then … the relationship between their people back then. She’d tried to project that strength she knew the Grounders respected right back at her. Blue eyes burning. Chin lifted. Undaunted. She wasn’t entirely sure she was doing it right though … Most of the time, it had felt like she was just staring at Lexa … She was … so hard not to stare at … ‘Because she’s dangerous … and … I need to keep an eye on her …’ Clarke used to tell herself … which was technically true. All her staring at Lexa definitely had nothing to do with the fact that everyone else just seemed blurry … to the point of near invisibility when Lexa was around … It had nothing to do with the fact that when Lexa looked at her she felt … taller … braver … like she was … the only thing that existed … like she somehow … became more real when Lexa’s eyes were on her … the way it had felt like … Lexa was looking directly into her … calculating something behind those clever green eyes … Clarke hadn’t been sure what Lexa was calculating, but she figured that maybe if she stared at her more, got Lexa to look at her more, she’d figure it out … And she had also convinced herself that finding out justified her attention to every little detail of Lexa, every inflection of her voice, every flutter of an expression, every twitch of a lip, of an eyebrow, careful attention to the way she held herself, her posture, the way she moved, her hands … Hours of silent contemplation of those dark intense looks Lexa gave her … late at night … wondering if Lexa would give her more of those looks the next day …And Lexa’s indifference to her now as she undid her braids was making her crave that look now … made her want to get Lexa’s eyes back on her … Clarke barely resisted the urge to tug one of the braids a little too hard, just to get a reaction out of her. But she didn’t. She’d get Lexa’s attention back on her soon enough.She had a plan.She ran her fingers through Lexa’s now braid free hair, more times than was strictly necessary, until Lexa cleared her throat a little and stood up, said, “Shower”.Clarke nodded and took Lexa’s bottles and little poofy scrubber thing into the shower, added a little sway in her step as she stepped inside.Lexa might not be looking at her when she was watching, but Clarke was entirely naked. Surely Lexa would look when she wasn’t watching at least.Clarke turned on the hot water, and after a moment, Lexa stepped into the shower with her.Clarke already had the soap on the poof, ready to go when Lexa stepped in, but Lexa shook her head, and said seriously, “You cannot clean me until you are clean yourself.”Clarke grinned.Stepped under the hot water and let it soak her hair, rush down her skin. Washed her hair with the shampoo from one of Lexa’s bottles. And then she looked Lexa in the eye and put on a show. Slowly soaping herself up a little with the poof, watching Lexa watch her with that dark, quiet intensity. She hung the poof on the shower door handle and opted to soap herself up the rest of the way with her hands instead, slowly rubbing soap down her neck, across her shoulders, down her arms, across her chest, carefully rubbing soap across her breasts, holding them, squeezing them, rubbing the slick soap across her stiff nipples with her thumbs.Lexa was an amazing actress. Her expression still impassive. But her eyes said exactly what Clarke hoped they’d say at this little performance.She let her soapy hands run down her stomach, let a hand wander further down between her thighs, looking Lexa in the eye as she cleaned herself, letting out little breathy sighs as her hand rubbed between her soft folds.She could totally get off like this … just from Lexa looking at her like that … her own hand between her legs …Her walls were already fluttering and squeezing.Lexa’s dark eyes shifted away from her and she cleared her throat a little, “This is my shower though.”Clarke smirked.Lexa had said it like she was reminded herself really.And Lexa had let Clarke’s little show go on for longer than necessary.Clarke rinsed herself off and stepped out of the way, and Lexa stepped in to take her place, soaking her hair under the hot water.And then the real work began.Clarke threading shampoo into Lexa’s mane, massaging Lexa’s scalp with her fingers.It was … tricky … hard not to run her hands down the sides of Lexa’s neck and … further down. But she satisfied herself by grazing her chest against Lexa’s back a little while she shampooed her hair, so Lexa could feel her hard nipples and know what she wanted to do.After a minute or two, Lexa stepped under the water and rinsed, stepped out from under the water and Clarke was ready with soap in her hands, took a step forward and Lexa took a half step back, flicked up her chin a little, a warning.“You serve me … not yourself …,” Lexa leveled her with a stare, “Do not forget.”Clarke nodded.Oh, she definitely hadn’t forgotten.If everything went to plan, she’d be serving Lexa shortly.Lexa didn’t even glance at the poof hanging from the door. Let Clarke soap her up with her hands instead, hands that trailed down the side of Lexa’s neck, moved appreciatively across her shoulders, down her sides, rubbed carefully down her chest, over her breasts, letting Lexa’s hard nipples press into her palms as her slick hands gently massaged her breasts. Clarke kept her eyes on her work all that time, but looked into Lexa’s dark eyes as her hands trailed lower down her muscly stomach, feeling across her abs, her fingers tracing the lines and curves of her muscles slowly, scratched at them a little and felt them twitch under her fingers, watched Lexa’s chin raise a little at the memory of the last time Clarke had done that.“You back Heda? Please.” Clarke said, her voice low and full of gravel.Lexa turned around and Clarke’s eyes trailed down the bruises littered across Lexa’s shoulders and lower back.Stepped in a little closer. Let her hands move carefully, avoiding each bruise, skating around them, careful not to touch. They didn’t look too bad. But there were enough of them that she couldn’t say she had completely fulfilled her duties of cleaning Lexa unless she cleaned across them too.Clarke stepped in closer, close enough that Lexa could feel her breaths on the side of her neck as she pressed her palms very lightly against Lexa’s lower back. Started gently sliding them up slowly, heard Lexa’s breath catch in her throat.“Does it hurt Heda?” Clarke asked lightly, her hands frozen in place Lexa’s back, “Should I be more gentle?”“No …,” Lexa answered quietly.Clarke pressed her hands a little more firmly against Lexa’s lower back and very slowly slid them all the way up, listening to Lexa’s breaths hitch when her hands rubbed up against a sensitive spot.She wanted to press soft kisses across those bruises so fucking badly. But there were rules she was meant to be playing by. So she let her thumbs swirl across them instead. Pressed her front against Lexa’s butt a little, because she just couldn’t help herself.When she’d finished cleaning Lexa’s back, she filled her hands with soap and dropped down to her knees on the shower floor, her hands cleaning all the way up from the backs of Lexa’s ankles to her calves, up her strong thighs, more focused on massaging them than cleaning, but accomplishing both aims all the same. She ran both hands over the soft curves of Lexa’s ass, resisting the urge to squeeze.She stood up and angled the shower head to rinse off Lexa’s back. And then asked Lexa to turn around.When she did, Clarke could see that she had been successful in her endeavors. Lexa’s eyes were just pools of black. Her lips were red and flushed … looked extremely kissable … but she resisted the urge. Put more soap in her hands. Dropped down to her knees again, looked up at Lexa with equally hungry eyes.Lexa gave her a little nod and Clarke’s hands started moving slowly up Lexa’s legs, over her shins, up her thighs, massaging the strong muscles, looking up at Lexa while she did it.She leaned forward a little, breathing out warm breaths over Lexa’s soft folds as her hands worked, her thumbs swirling up the insides of Lexa’s thighs in little circles through the slick that was already dripping down them.And then Clarke looked up at her and panted, “Can I Heda?”Lexa gave her a little nod and Clarke’s hands slid around the back of Lexa’s thighs, her hand wrapping around them, and leaned in, groaned at the taste of Lexa on her tongue, licked into her hungrily, felt Lexa’s entrance fluttering against the smooth glide of her tongue.Lexa was so ready for her.She let herself get lost in the feeling of Lexa so soft and so wet against her lips, the taste of her, her entire world narrowing to just the feeling of Lexa against her mouth, to the steady lapping of her tongue gliding through Lexa’s slit over and over again in a little rhythm, ignoring the wetness sliding down her own thighs to focus entirely on Lexa’s pleasure.Clarke shifted her attentions to Lexa’s clit, started sucking it, swirling her tongue around it, felt Lexa’s hands slide into her hair and grip to hold her in place.Not that Clarke was planning on going anywhere.She’d be perfectly happy spending the next hour on her knees sucking Lexa like this, pulling one shivering climax after another out of her.And Lexa’s thighs were already quaking a little under her hands.She leaned in lower, tongue lapping through all the slick, through the mess she was making with her efforts.Lexa growled, her hands tightening in her hair, and tugged Clarke’s mouth back to her clit.Clarke started sucking it eagerly, ears straining to hear Lexa’s quiet breaths above her, wanting to please her, wanting to break Lexa’s silence and hear her low groan.She tried every trick she could, lapping gently against Lexa’s clit, tracing around the sides of it with her tongue, sealing her lips around it and sucking softly.“That’s enough,” Lexa said evenly.Clarke leaned back and panted up at her. Her forehead furrowed.“What?”Lexa arched an eyebrow at her, “I said that’s enough.”The furrow in Clarke’s forehead deepened. Annoyance prickling through her veins.Clearly it wasn’t enough.Despite her best efforts, Lexa was still speaking in full sentences. Didn’t even look out of breath. Looked … a little bored maybe?Lexa sighed wearily and looked away, “Perhaps … after breakfast …”Clarke’s hands flexed against Lexa’s thighs.
What?!?
She had never failed to get Lexa off before.And Lexa clearly wanted to … was so ready to … The evidence was all over Clarke’s mouth …Wasn’t the whole point of this game that she would get to serve Lexa?Even if Lexa was just messing with her, why mess with her like this?This way, they both lost …“I’m hungry …,” Lexa sighed.“Me too …,” Clarke grumbled under her breath as she reluctantly got to her feet. —- Lexa was weirdly quiet at breakfast …More quiet than normal even as Clarke made them pancakes from a mix in the pantry.Lexa thanked her for the pancakes … complimented them after her first bite … but then kinda just stared down at her plate as she ate.Clarke reached over and squeezed her knee, “What’s wrong?”Lexa looked over at her, “I want you to come to the lab with me … after I check the computers …”Clarke grinned back at her, “Will that be part of our game Heda? The lab’s … not very romantic …”Lexa shook her head, “I want to run some tests on you … To make sure you’re ok … since you were outside when the radiation came … I … can’t play until I know that you’re okay …”Clarke smiled at her, “Okay. But … after we can play right? You kinda … bailed on me before and … I … wasn’t done serving you …”Lexa gave her a little grin. —- After Lexa had spent a while in the workshop on the computers that morning, they walked over to the lab.As they stepped through the door and down the little hallway … the lights blinked on … illuminating the huge space …The lab was just as impressive as it had been the first time Clarke had seen it years ago … Becca’s big glass walled office … all the clean white tables and counters and workstations … all the cabinets and refrigerators lining the walls …The top level of the lab was like a big balcony … looking down on the massive lower level … where more of the lab’s equipment and computers were … where the big hangar doors were that the rocket had once been behind.The lower level was the place Clarke had run to … had run down the metal steps to after she’d run into the lab to escape the death wave years ago …But she was walking down those metal steps this time … with Lexa by her side.This place had saved her life.But she’d only come back to the lab when she’d had to since then … When she’d needed more bandages and salves for her radiation burns when she’d been recovering in Becca’s house … When she’d come back on a supply run for medical gear to stock her med supplies in the valley in case of an accident there.Despite saving her, this place still felt haunted …Every time she’d been back … she’d felt this sort of primal, animal fear gnawing at the pit of her stomach as she’d gathered supplies … It was like her body remembered this place … All the pain she’d experienced from the radiation would probably always be associated with this place.And in spite of Clarke’s modest efforts at cleaning up a little … there was still a big black stain on the floor by the lab’s sinks … where she had passed out from the pain after attempting to rinse the radiation burns on her hand to decontaminate … where she’d woken up in a big pool of black blood she must have vomited up when she’d been delirious or half unconscious from the pain.Lexa eyed the black stain on the floor too and then turned to face her, folded her arms, “Tell me everything that happened … when the death wave came …”Clarke folded her arms too and looked away.She … really didn’t want to remember that day …The radiation had been by far the most painful thing she had ever experienced … physically anyway … what she could remember of it anyway … At some points … the pain had gotten so extreme that her brain had just … shut down … and she’d lost consciousness completely …“There’s nothing to tell really …,” Clarke said, avoiding eye contact.Lexa put a crooked finger under her chin and turned Clarke’s head back to face her, “Today … I am your healer … I have the expert on nightblood in my mind … Tell me … as you would tell a healer … so I can make sure you are okay …”Clarke chewed her lip a little.Lexa was probably gonna flip out when she heard …She might lose it herself just from talking about it …But going through what she’d been through and not having a check up … not having any medical exams except for the ones she’d given herself over the past few years did seem … kinda … ludicrous …“You were outside … when the death wave came …” Lexa prompted gently, “… as Raven said …”Clarke nodded a little, her brain flashing back to that day, “Yeah … I … had to climb the satellite tower … to reposition the dish …”Lexa gave a nod and looked back at her … waiting silently, patiently for the rest.Clarke sighed, “I was wearing a radiation suit … but … when I plugged the tablet into the satellite box … to send the message to the Ring … It … was a touch screen tablet … It … didn’t respond when I had my gloves on … So … I took off one of my gloves … to get it to send the message …”Lexa pressed her lips together, looking back at her silently.Clarke let out a heavy sigh at the memory, “And then … my hand started burning … from the radiation in the air … But … I had to climb down … to come back here … because I could see the death wave coming … So I put the glove back on and … did that …”Lexa gently took Clarke’s left hand … lifted it between them … eyes and gentle fingers inspecting it, “This hand?”Clarke nodded.Waiting while Lexa carefully inspected her hand.Somehow, there wasn’t even a single scar left from all the radiation burns that had once covered every inch of her body … No scars anywhere she could see anyway …But if souls existed though … then hers was scarred all to hell from that experience … From the knowledge of the absolute fucking maximum amount of pain that a human body could experience …“I came here …,” Clarke said shakily, her lungs suddenly feeling tight in her chest, “… to rinse my hand … to decontaminate it … and I started to … But … it was too late … the radiation was … already in me … inside my suit … I could feel it … moving up my arm … in my body …”Big tears slid down Clarke’s cheeks at the memory … the burning … the memory of that bright white light that had flashed in front of her eyes at the searing pain … the taste of copper in her mouth …Lexa slipped an arm around her and hugged Clarke tight against her chest, put a gentle hand on the back of Clarke’s head and Clarke nuzzled her nose into the side of Lexa’s neck.“You are not there now …,” Lexa said quietly, “You are here with me … Safe.”Clarke nodded a little against her neck, “I … thought I was gonna die … I wasn’t afraid … but … it was like … my body was afraid … of the pain … the burning …”More big tears slid down Clarke’s cheeks and she whispered out shakily, “It … felt like I was dying … Everything ached … It hurt to breathe … I laid here … on the floor for … I don’t know how many days … Eventually I … could pull myself up to get water … And then … I crawled up the stairs … ate the protein bars in Becca’s desk … Kept … passing out though … I still felt like I was dying … Like … maybe I did die …”Lexa’s arm squeezed around her.“I went to the house …,” Clarke sniffled, “… when I could walk again … It … took weeks … Five or six weeks at the house maybe … till I was well enough to go to Polis … to the bunker. I knew where we’d left the rover, on the other side of the water when we came here … So I hiked back there when I was better … dug around in the sand until I found it … Dug it out … came back here for provisions … Drove to Polis …”“Symptoms … after?” Lexa asked quietly, her arm still hugging Clarke close against her chest.Clarke leaned back a little at let out another shaky breath, “The nausea had stopped by then … Most of my burns had healed too … I was … covered in burns for a few weeks after … but they healed. I was still pretty weak for a while though … muscle weakness … and … nightmares … flashbacks …”Lexa looked back at her silently, looked back at her through watery eyes.Clarke let out a sigh, “This is too hard for you to hear …”Lexa shook her head a little and said quietly, “When I asked you to go to space over the radio … the flame showed me what could happen …”Clarke wiped the tears off her cheeks and looked back at her, “But I didn’t die … or … maybe I did … But …”Lexa sighed and looked away, “But at such heavy cost … In space … you would have been spared all that pain … You didn’t even consider going when I asked? If you’d had time to go with them?”Clarke shook her head, “I could never go back there … not after living here … I’d rather die on the ground than live in a metal box for the rest of my life …”Lexa sighed an pulled Clarke tight against her chest again, and Clarke wrapped her arms around her.“Your friends chose it …,” Lexa whispered.Clarke nodded a little, “I know but … I’m not like them … Not in that way anyway … Ever since I can remember I’ve been drawing the ground … Stuff I saw in old tv shows and movies on the Ark … documentaries … Pictures I saw in books … It was how I escaped … I couldn’t go back to that life … Especially not if there was any chance that …” Clarke looked at her, knowing Lexa wouldn’t wanna hear that she’d done it for her too, “If there was any chance that I could survive here … I wanted to take that chance. Even wasteland Earth is better than space …”Lexa leaned over and kissed her softly, whispered against her lips, “You are incredibly stubborn …”Clarke smiled “Yeah … I really am …” and kissed her again.Then she leaned back a little and looked Lexa in the eye, “Are you still mad at me?”“Yes,” Lexa sighed out.Clarke nodded a little.That was … probably fair …If Lexa had done what she’d done … let herself be irradiated … she would be beyond furious …Lexa sighed again and slid her hand into Clarke’s hair, “If someone had done that to you … kept you here … put you through all that pain … can you imagine what I would do to them?”Clarke shook her head.She didn’t want to imagine it.Lexa sighed a third time, “And someone did put you through that … You. And … now I … I don’t know what to do with my anger …”Clarke nodded and then looked back at her for a long moment, “It helps no one to dwell on the past … You told me that …”Lexa’s forehead furrowed, “Yes well … that was much easier to do when the flame was doing a better job of numbing my feelings …”Clarke laced her fingers together behind Lexa’s neck and looked her in the eye, “It was worth it … For what we have now … For Madi … the valley … for you … the kids … All of it was totally worth it.”Lexa sighed again, “Take a seat over there … I need to take some blood.”Clarke pulled up her sleeve and took a seat, watched Lexa pull open a drawer … pull out antiseptic and swipe it over a little spot on her forearm. Watched her pull out a syringe and unwrap it … hold the needle just over a vein …“Ready?” Lexa asked quietly, not looking at her.“Hey …,” Clarke put a hand on Lexa’s shoulder, “It’s gonna be okay … I’m fine … I feel fine …”“Ready?” Lexa said again quietly, still not looking at her.“Yes …,” Clarke sighed, pulling her hand away.But Lexa didn’t move, her hand frozen, the needle hovering just above Clarke’s arm for a full minute.“Lex?” Clarke asked.Lexa let out a shaky sigh and then carefully inserted the needle … extremely gently.“Are you afraid of needles?” Clarke asked softly.Lexa shook her head.And then she very slowly pulled back the plunger, filling the syringe with Clarke’s black blood.“You’re doing great …,” Clarke said quietly.Lexa glanced up at her.Clarke pursed her lips, and then smiled, “You just don’t wanna hurt me … That’s it … isn’t it …”Lexa didn’t answer. She filled the syringe and then carefully pulled out the needle, pressed a soft piece of gauze over the puncture mark, held it down with her thumb so it wouldn’t bruise. And then placed a little bandage over the gauze. Smoothed down the sides of it gently with her thumb.She pulled the vial out of the syringe, placed it inside a big circular metal container on the counter and closed the lid. Pressed a button on the top that blinked green, pressed a few more buttons and the machine whirred to life.And then stood next to the machine with her hand resting on top of it, looking at the floor.Clarke stepped in front of her and tugged her close by the shirt with both hands and kissed her.Lexa sighed and leaned back, shook her head, “Not now Clarke … I need to think.”Clarke tugged Lexa close again, “Yes now … You don’t get to worry until there’s something to worry about …”“You’re saying that?” Lexa arched an eyebrow back at her.“Yeah …,” Clarke smirked back, “It’s this new thing I’m trying … Just for today … for … variety …” She leaned in and kissed her again, “And … ‘cause you’re being so adorable right now … giving me a little bandage … Sweating over giving me a tiny pin prick …”Clarke took Lexa’s hand and put it on her breast, squeezed Lexa’s hand over it, felt the delicious ache of the bruises and mumbled against Lexa’s lips, “You know I’m tough …”Lexa leaned deeper into her kiss, backed Clarke up against the counter, her hand on the back of Clarke’s neck, pulling her in, her other hand gently massaging Clarke’s breast, sending little waves of pain and pleasure shuddering through her.Clarke had just slid her hand into Lexa’s pants when the machine on the counter beeped, and Lexa pulled away, sat down in front of one of the computers and started typing. Her pants still unbuttoned and unzipped, leaving Clarke just standing there by the counter, panting.Clarke sighed to herself, watching Lexa look through one graph and page of test results after another on the screen.Lexa let out a relieved sigh and looked at her, “Your results look … mostly okay …”“See?” Clarke smiled, “I told you … Nothing to worry about … I feel good. Now can we please get back to-““Lower level …,” Lexa said standing up and rebuttoning her pants, “We need to go down a level to do a scan for any internal damage …”Clarke sighed and folded her arms, vaguely remembering now that the first time she’d come to the lab, Jackson had told her the lab had 5 different levels … which she was probably just about to be tested on every single one of.Clarke looked back at her, “Ok but … when’s the last time you had a blood test?”Lexa pressed her lips together.Clarke sighed, “That’s what I thought … Any test I do … you’re gonna do too. I wanna know you’re okay too … So … you owe me a blood test.”Lexa stood up straighter, “I have had the flame for most of my life … and nightblood all of my life … to aid with healing …”Clarke pulled open a drawer and grabbed another syringe, started unwrapping it, “Great. So you won’t mind if I take a look then.”Lexa rolled her eyes and then tugged up her sleeve.Sat down on the chair.Clarke took her blood and Lexa put the vial in the machine, explained all the results. The higher white blood cell count, the more highly oxygenated red blood cells. The antibodies floating around in her system for seemingly every illness known to man. Perfect blood sugar levels even though they had just had breakfast not so long ago.Lexa flipped open Clarke’s results and started comparing them.“That’s crazy …,” Clarke mumbled, looking at the screen, “How is our blood sugar so low …”“Not low … steady …,” Lexa answered, “Blood sugar spikes make us tired … make us think less clearly … That’s … not optimal … Nightblood takes care of that … Takes care of many other flaws in red blood too.”Clarke looked back at her, “My dad was pre-diabetic …”Lexa shook her head, “You won’t be.”Clarke raised an eyebrow and Lexa took her hand, led her to a back corner of the lab, pressed a button on the wall that apparently called an elevator.When they stepped out of the metal doors,  they were in yet another huge lab.Lexa walked Clarke to a glass chamber, helped her out of her clothes and into it,  and Clarke laid on her back as the chamber took a full body scan.When Lexa helped her out of it many minutes later, Clarke saw a 3-D image of herself hovering in the air next to the workstation where Lexa had been sitting by a computer.Lexa stepped over to the image and put out her hands, started moving the hovering image around, rotating it, as if she was actually touching the projected body. Started naming organs that made the image turn and zoom in on them as a voice over the computer gave a report.When the computer voice finished, Lexa said quietly, “You did sustain damage … but you are healing. The nightblood is helping … it’s just … taking time.”Lexa pointed out a few fuzzy, rough looking spots in the image, “Some liver damage here … and here … on your kidneys as well … But your heart and lungs have fully recovered … priority areas … Some … old head trauma is still healing. It’s delicate … takes longer …”Clarke nodded, “Yeah … I’ve been hit in the head a few of times since we came to the ground … Quite a few times I guess … Fist fights … Got knocked out a few times with the butt of a gun …”“Now you …,” Clarke looked at her.Lexa sighed.But then she pointed to a button on the keyboard, pulled off her clothes and laid down inside the machine, pulled the glass panel shut behind her and shot Clarke a thumbs up, then laid her arm back down and closed her eyes.Clarke pushed the button and heard the machine whir to life. Watched as a 3-D image of Lexa’s body slowly materialized in the air as the minutes passed.Clarke was already rotating it with her hands and zooming in on different things using the commands she’d heard Lexa use by the time Lexa had pulled on her clothes.The voice over the computer went through each organ, each bodily system, reporting “optimal” after it listed out each one.“What are all those little lines everywhere? Is that … some kind of glitch?” Clarke asked, pointing at a few of them.“Old injuries … from battles mostly …,” Lexa answered, “Some from training … Challenges … Assassination attempts …”Clarke closed her eyes and slowly shook her head.“They are all healed …,” Lexa said stiffly, “The marks are there but … they are healed. They are the marks of healing ...”Clarke looked back at her, “There’s so many … on your organs … your bones …”Lexa pressed her lips together and then said quietly, “I am the longest serving commander … 12 years … and … it took many battles to end the clan wars …”Clarke sighed, “If you could survive all this … how did they manage to take out the commanders before you?”“Thoroughly …,” Lexa arched an eyebrow, “With fire … beheading … poison … multiple-“Clarke waived a hand, “Nevermind … I don’t wanna know.”Lexa looked away, hugged her arms around herself … like she was maybe uncomfortable with all of her past injuries being laid bare for Clarke’s critical eyes to see … Or … maybe she was uncomfortable seeing the evidence of all her past injuries herself … just … floating there … in vivid detail …She shook her head.No.It was Clarke.Clarke was the only person who had ever made her feel like being strong could be … wrong … somehow …Clarke stepped forward and unfolded Lexa’s arms, held her hands, “I’m sorry … I don’t mean to judge … I’m not judging you … I’m just … If someone had shown up in medical with damage like this … We would’ve reported it … Your guardian would’ve been floated for letting all this happen to you …”Lexa’s forehead furrowed, “I am not a child Clarke.”Clarke squeezed her hands and said quietly, “But you were a child right? For some of this? For … a lot of this … Stuff from training … That started long before you became comm-““I don’t want to discuss it,” Lexa looked away.Clarke looked at her, “If Madi-““We will not be discussing it,” Lexa snapped.Clarke squeezed her hands again, “Okay … but we can … if you ever want to …”“It’s in the past …,” Lexa said quietly, “That time is over.”Clarke gave her a little smile, “Your heart looks good … optimal.”Lexa nodded a little and looked back at her, “Yours too.”Clarke leaned in a little, rested their foreheads together.“I want to try something …,” Lexa said quietly, “To speed up your healing.”Clarke leaned back, “You said I’m already healing right? I just need time.”Lexa gave a little nod, “Bekka thinks she knows a way to speed it up.”Clarke shrugged, “Sure. What do I need to do.”“You know how to insert an IV?” Lexa asked.Clarke’s nodded, “Yeah … but … I’m not sure I can do it on myself … I can show you how to do it for me though … It’s not hard.”Lexa shook her head a little, “Bekka will tell me how … I will do yours … I just need you to do mine.”Clarke’s forehead furrowed, “What?”“I will connect us …,” Lexa answered, “Your blood is making repairs as fast as it can … but my blood can help yours … The … bio-nanotech in my blood will detect your injuries and help your blood with repairs.”Clarke shook her head, “You need your blood Lexa … Aden said when we took Luna’s bone marrow she died. I’m not taking your blood.”Lexa squeezed her hand, “It won’t hurt me … I will make more.”“We’re probably not even the same blood type …,” Clarke looked back at her.Lexa gave her a little smile, “We are now … That was another problem nightblood solved. The natblidas donated their blood to me when I was shot. We are universal donors for one another. And now I will do the same for you. There will be no risk to you.”Clarke shook her head again, “You can’t afford to be tired from blood donation … You’ve got a lot of stuff to do here … for the bunker.”Lexa smiled at her, “I will be fine. You heard my report. My own repair cells have nothing to do for me … they just … sit in my blood doing nothing … But they can help you. My body will replenish them before I need them again. If I ever do …”“Promise me they’ll be no negative effects for you …,” Clarke looked back at her, “Swear it.”Lexa nodded, “I swear … Bekka also swears.”Clarke sighed, “Okay.”Clarke watched as Lexa gathered supplies from around the lab …. set up two cots … rolled four IV stands next to them, and then set up an elaborate array of tubing.After a little while, Lexa patted the cot next to hers and Clarke pulled up her sleeve and took a seat on it.Lexa very carefully removed Clarke’s bandaid and inserted the IV into the same spot on Clarke’s arm, taped it down, put another one in Clarke’s other arm too … and then Clarke gently inserted IV needles into each of Lexa’s arm and taped them down.Clarke watched black blood flood through the clear tubing leaving her arm, watched Lexa’s blood rushing toward her in the tube in her other arm to take its place.“Are you okay?” Lexa asked quietly.Clarke nodded, “How long will it take?”“More time is better …,” Lexa looked back at her, “We are stuck here while we are hooked up though … So … I guess it will take … as long as you can stand my company ...”Clarke smirked back at her, “So … forever then?”Lexa gave her a little grin, “In that case … we should lie down …”Clarke carefully laid back on her cot and Lexa laid down on the cot beside her, looked up at the ceiling for a little while and then closed her eyes.Clarke reached across the little divide between their cots and took Lexa’s hand, “I take it back.”Lexa’s eyes fluttered open and she turned to face her.“The lab can be romantic …,” Clarke grinned back at her, “You just made it romantic … with this …”Lexa gave her a little smile, “It’s only a little blood …”Clarke smirked, “It’s not just a little though is it … And I think you know this is extremely sweet … and hot as hell … you giving me the literal blood from your veins … just so I can heal a little faster …”“Twice as fast …,” Lexa said quietly and gave Clarke’s hand a gentle squeeze.“I think you’re the most romantic person I’ve ever met …,” Clarke smiled back at her, “You’re so … secretly … quietly romantic …”Lexa chuckled, “Well … ai hod yu in Clarke … I cannot help it …”Clarke sighed, “I really should build you a house … Would you like that? If I built you a house?”Lexa barked out a laugh, “What?”“Madi said I should do something for you … before my trails …,” Clarke looked back at her, “And she’s right … I should … I want to …”Lexa smiled back at her, “I don’t need a house … just as I did not need you to do any trials … I only want your love. That’s all I’ve ever wanted from you … You have nothing to prove to me …”Clarke sighed, mentally crossing ‘House’ off her list.“Okay but … something …,” Clarke looked back at her, “You’ve done so much for me … And you still are … right now … I still don’t feel like I’ve earned you …”“You don’t have to earn my love …,” Lexa sighed.“You earned mine …,” Clarke arched an eyebrow back at her.Lexa shook her head a little, “I had your love already. I had to earn your trust back … after I broke it … That’s different.”Clarke smirked back at her, “Kinda overkill though don’t you think? Swearing fealty to me … Changing your culture instead of wiping out my people for their bullshit … Dealing with all the blowback …”“Your people are important …,” Lexa looked at her, “Skykru medicine … tek … all important to my mission. Even now in the bunker … your people have the necessary skills …”Clarke rolled her eyes, “But also you love me … You know that’s part of it …”“Yes …,” Lexa said quietly, “That is part of it.”“And what have I done for you?” Clarke looked back at her, “I did what you asked me to do … before praimfaya … Got you Pike … but that’s all work stuff.”“I owe you my life Clarke … after I was shot …,” Lexa answered.Clarke shook her head a little, “Jackson saved you … I just … took care of you after that …”“You gave me a very good reason to live …,” Lexa smiled at her, “You still do.”Clarke squeezed her hand, “I want a list … everything you want.”Lexa sighed, “Clarke … you have given me so much … And you are helping me raise my youngens … teaching them … caring for them … giving them a normal childhood …”“Raising your perfect children isn’t hard Lex …,” Clarke looked back at her.“Why does it have to be hard?” Lexa said quietly, “Perhaps … now that we are retired … things can just be … easy. Perhaps our challenge now … after so many trials … is to learn to let things be easy …”Clarke chewed that over.Things had been easy … in the valley … with Madi and Lexa and the kids … For the first time in her life things had been easy … Except for worrying over Lexa in the bunker before she’d arrived … But then Lexa had came to the valley and living with her, loving her, parenting Madi and the kids together with her … that big change in her life had actually been easy … The only thing that had been truly hard was letting Lexa go back to the bunker … talking to her about that possibility even … but pretty soon she wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore either …Lexa traced her thumb over Clarke’s knuckles, “What you did here … it terrifies me … I am … more scared than angry … And I do respect it … you saving your friends … But … the thought of you hurting like that …”Clarke nodded, “I get it. I’d be really upset too if you’d done it.”Lexa sighed and rested her forehead against Clarke’s, said quietly, “From now on … we make big decisions together … All big decisions … together. Your promises … your word … you must honor it.”Clarke nodded a little and squeezed Lexa’s hands, “Okay Babe … Okay …”And when their transfusion finished, Lexa made good on their deal that morning.After they’d put away the IV stands and cleaned up the medical equipment, Lexa toed off her shoes. Took off her clothes and sat down on the cot.Stepped her feet apart and looked up at Clarke expectantly, raised an eyebrow, “Go on. Prove yourself.”Clarke beamed back at her and knelt down between her knees.Hoisted Lexa’s thighs up over her shoulders and got right back to work serving her Heda.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It took a week after their arrival at Becca’s to set up New Polis in the end. For the chip maker to churn out the 1,990 new chips for the people in the bunker.To make the special administrator chip for Aden and another for Lexa. Plus 9 more chips for Clarke and the kids.But Kliron Kru’s chips were for someday far off in the future.And Clarke was a little more comfortable with that handful of chips for Kliron Kru by the time Lexa slid them into the little metal box for their trip back to the bunker and then home.They’d ended up talking about New Polis a lot during their time at Becca’s house, and over meals in the workshop.It was impossible not to talk about.Lexa had been working on it so much.And she was so proud of it.On their last night at Becca’s, when it was finally done, she’d shown Clarke New Polis on the screens in the workshop. Zoomed in on the valley, showed her their village, their little house, the barn, the meeting house. Showed her the simulated rabbits and deer and other animals wandering through its forests and tall grasses, the simulated fish gliding through the crystal clear water of their lake. The berry bushes and fruit trees and garden and corn field. Even the chickens in the coop. Even the marsh was there, with its eels and frogs and cattails and Lexa bears.Every aspect of it rendered in meticulous detail.Clarke squeezed Lexa’s hand, tears streaming down her cheeks at the sight of their home.Tears streaming down Lexa’s cheeks as she showed Clarke Polis restored. The tower that had been Lexa’s home for so much of her life, standing tall in all its former glory over the sprawling streets and restored buildings of the city. It was so shockingly detailed. Clarke could see the cracks in the cobble stones. The grit of dust and dirt on them. Even the way the breeze moved through the banners of all the empty market stalls looked so real that Clarke could practically feel the wind on her skin. Even the quality of the sunlight was perfect. Warm and golden. Shifted as big puffy clouds rolled by in the simulated blue sky. “It’s incredible …,” Clarke breathed out.Lexa nodded, “It was incredible … and it is again. With both its perfections and its imperfections. Their lives here will be full. With the small struggles and responsibilities that our people need to be happy. To give their lives meaning. It was one of so many things ALIE did not understand about us … could not understand. We need our challenges. Our quests and struggles. We need rainy days and muddy boots to make us the sunny days better by contrast. We are not built for lives of perfect ease. We need work too. Our work with each other, for each other is what brings us together.”Lexa showed her a little of the lands of the other clans too, the different kinds of forests and fields that those in the bunker had requested, to make their new world feel like their old home. The villages of Trikru. The mountains of Ice Nation. Even Floukru’s rig at sea … even though Floukru had been wiped out first by the radiation, before it had reached the rest of the clans on land.Arkadia was there too. For Skykru. But this time they had more lands of their own to give them space from the other clans.“A lot of Skykru might like the City of Light better … It’s more … developed … more like what Skykru was used to in space …,” Clarke said.Lexa nodded, “Some might. And they may go there if they wish when the two worlds are joined. I suspect that in time, new krus will form. Built on commonalities perhaps, rather than a shared history.”Clarke squeezed Lexa’s hand and gave her a little smile, “Like Kliron Kru.”Lexa smiled back at her, “We found our family. Others will as well. Some already have in the bunker.” —- The next morning, they finished loading everything up into their two vehicles. The rover and the SUV were jam packed with supplies from Becca’s compound. The bikes. Tools and extra solar panels for making future repairs to the vehicles. Medical gear from the lab and clothes and shoes for the kids.It was a little unfortunate that they’d be driving back to the bunker separately, but Lexa had set up a little touch screen music player that plugged into the rover with a cable to keep Clarke entertained on the drive back.They were both excited to introduce the kids to the music of the old world that they’d been listening to in the house all week. And that little touch screen player was loaded with thousand and thousands of songs.But what Clarke was most excited about was the books. The dozens and dozens of books she was bringing back to the valley from Becca’s personal library.She was already planning the book club they would add to their regular curriculum in their little school.Lexa was planning on using her time during the drive back to the bunker drawing on the knowledge of the flame to learn about all the things they could grow and build in the valley. All the little comforts they could have there with the resources they had to work with.And she did.By the time they had made it back to the bunker, Lexa trailing behind Clarke’s rover in the SUV, her brain was overflowing with possibilities and new projects.She had that sparkle in her eye that told Clarke as much when they stepped out of the vehicles to meet Aden in front of the bunker.Clarke grabbed the bag of printed out messages from Space Kru for their friends in the bunker from the passenger seat. Then stepped over to where Lexa was gripping Aden’s forearm with one hand, and passing him the box full of chips with the other.“It is a momentous day …,” Aden grinned, “Thank you for your work on this.”Lexa nodded and pulled Aden’s chip out of her pocket, “And this one is for you.”“And you have made yours as well?” Aden raised a questioning eyebrow.“Of course …,” Lexa grinned, “And for everyone in the valley.”Aden nodded, “I look forward to working with you in our new world …,” and then he grinned at Clarke, “Not too much work though …”Clarke grinned back at him, “I hope not.”Aden stood up a little straighter, “I will be calling a meeting in the main chamber tomorrow and will take my chip in view of our people then. Others from the clans have committed to taking their chips after me … once they see that it is safe. Marcus has already agreed to be among the first.”Clarke nodded, “That’s good of him …”Aden grinned, “It is extremely helpful. Some of the other clan leaders now believe that there are advantages to be had by taking the chip first … more resources that can be claimed by early arrivals … Which … is not exactly true … but I will not dissuade them …”Lexa sighed, “Of course …”Aden clapped a hand on her shoulder, “There will be peace there … it is guaranteed. Now … I believe you have something of mine …”Lexa glanced at Clarke, “Yes … I … must …give back the flame …”Aden gave her a little smile, and then turned to Clarke, “Your mother wishes to speak with you. I … did not commit you to it … but I will allow it if you wish to. I can have her brought to the decontamination chamber if you do not want to go down to her holding cell.”Clarke looked at Lexa and chewed her lip a little.Lexa took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, “You are Madi to her … and she is you …”Clarke sighed.“We are making peace …,” Lexa said gently, “… for the people here and for ourselves. She loves you, you love her. That’s all that matters now.”Clarke nodded a little.“Come …,” Aden said, turning to the tunnel entrance and leading them inside.They made it down into the decontamination chamber and completed the protocols, and then the big metal door swung open and Gaia entered with her little suture kit.Lexa gave Aden a long hug and said quietly, “We await you in the valley. The natblidas have already set up your room.”He leaned back and grinned at her, “I look forward to seeing you there. As soon as I am able … I will come.”Aden and Lexa got on their knees on the chamber floor and pulled down their collars, slid their hair out of the way to reveal the infinity symbols tattooed on the backs of their necks and the rows of partially healed stitches from when they had done this a week ago.“I … I will say the word … to remove it …,” Lexa said a little shakily, her voice thick with emotion.Clarke squeezed Lexa’s shoulder and Aden took her hand.“You will see her again …,” Aden smiled at Lexa, “Bekka … all the commanders but one will be with us in New Polis.”Lexa gave him a little smile, “She will love it there.”He squeezed her hand, “You have completed your mission, Lexa kom Trikru. The mission Bekka gave us a century ago. And you have given your people peace once again. Your legacy will forever be peace.”Lexa squeezed his hand, “You are my legacy.”Aden smiled at her, tears spilling freely down his cheeks, “And you have given me peace as well.”They each turned and looked down at the floor and Gaia started the procedure. Swiped their infinity symbols with antiseptic, carefully trailed the scalpel down the back of Lexa’s neck, and Lexa sighed and said the passphrase to remove the flame from the back of her neck for the last time.Clarke watched the little spindly legged chip crawl out of the incision, watched Gaia carefully transfer the flame into the back of Aden’s neck.Heard him let out a heavy sigh as it crawled in and then Gaia and Clarke got to work on the stitches.When they finished, Aden was a little unsteady when he stood up, but he did not accept Gaia’s hand.Clarke handed him the bag with the messages from Space Kru for their friends in the bunker that they’d printed out in the workshop.“Your mother …,” Aden sighed and walked to the big metal door.Gaia opened it for him, and Aden instructed one of the guards stationed outside of the door to fetch Abby.As they waited, only two people walked across the bottom level of the bunker’s main chamber, walking straight to their destination far below. Clarke didn’t particularly want them to be seen, and neither of the passersby looked up.But Clarke asked if they could wait in the decontamination chamber anyway.Aden nodded, his eyes looking a little unfocused.“I can wait out here … to give you privacy,” Lexa said quietly.Clarke shook her head and took her hand, “No. It’s you and me … remember?”Lexa gave her a little smile and followed her through the big metal door.When they stepped inside, Clarke looked at her, “I wanna tell her … about us … and Madi …”Lexa gave her a soft smile, “Of course.”A few minutes later, when the guard pulled the big metal door open, Abby took quick steps to Clarke and pulled her into a long hug.“Hi Mom,” Clarke grinned squeezing her back as the guard shut the door to give them privacy.Abby let out a deep sigh and leaned back, just looking at her, her eyes wet with tears, “I’ve missed you so much.”“Me too …,” Clarke smiled and squeezed her hands.Abby turned to Lexa and gave her a grin, “Commander.”“It’s … just Lexa now …,” Lexa said, with a little smile.Abby nodded, “He’s good … Aden … I … haven’t been out in a while … but from what Marcus says … he’s doing really well.”Lexa gave her a proud smile, “I am glad to hear it.”Abby turned back to Clarke, “You know what’s going on here … with the chips?”Clarke nodded, “Yeah … we helped. And I’ve seen it … New Polis … It’s so beautiful … You’re gonna love it.”Abby smiled at her, “And you’re gonna be there too right?”“Probably …,” Clarke smiled back at her, and then glanced at Lexa, “I’ve got some stuff to do first though …”Abby glanced at Lexa too.“Mom …,” Clarke started, taking Abby’s hands again, “You know … Lexa and I … You know I love her …”Abby smirked and glanced at Lexa again, “Yes. I do know that. Pretty sure everyone who’s seen the way you look at her knows that …”Clarke grinned back at her, not embarrassed in the least, “Yeah. And now, I’m gonna marry her. I’m … basically married to her.”Abby’s eyebrows raised just the tiniest bit, but then she nodded, “I’m … not entirely surprised.”“I would like your blessing,” Lexa spoke up.Clarke shot her a look that said that Abby’s blessing was completely irrelevant.Abby pursed her lips a little, looked at Clarke for a long moment, and then at Lexa. And then she slipped the thin metal chain around her neck up over her head. Took Clarke’s hand and laid the necklace with the two metal rings hanging off it into Clarke’s palm.“You know what this is,” Abby looked her in the eye, “My ring and your father’s. They’re yours now. For you and Lexa. You have my blessing.”Clarke gave her a watery smile, “Thanks Mom.”Abby turned to Lexa, her eyes shiny with tears, “There’s very little I can threaten you with … besides a good haunting in New Polis. But … take care of Clarke. Make her happy.”Lexa gave her a shallow nod, her eyes sparkly with tears, “You have my oath Abby. I will give her every happiness I can.”Abby pulled her into a long hug, and then leaned back a little and squeezed Lexa’s shoulders, grinned out, “I hope you know what you’re getting into. She’s a handful.”“Why does everyone say that …,” Clarke grumbled, “Was there a fucking meeting …”Abby chuckled, “There may have been some talk about it …”“There’s … another thing too …,” Clarke glanced at Lexa, “I … found a girl … while I was on the ground … a nightblood … Madi … and I’ve … we’ve … adopted her …”Abby’s eyebrows raised at that, “Oh …”“She’s 10 …,” Clarke added, “… near as I can tell anyway …”Abby smiled softly at her, “That’s a good age … You’ve got a few years before the trouble starts …”Abby’s forehead furrowed, “But a nuclear wasteland isn’t the best place to be raising a child Clarke … She should be down here … I know this place won’t last forever but …”Clarke shook her head, “No. We’ve found a little place …,” she glanced at Lexa, Aden had told them not to tell anyone about the valley, “It’s not much … but … it’s enough for us to live on … and … she wouldn’t be okay with living in the bunker … She’s a Grounder … She … can’t live in a bunker …”Abby folded her arms and looked at her skeptically.Clarke sighed, “And I’m a Grounder … I can’t live here either. I … can’t live in another version of the Ark. We’re okay on the ground.”Abby lifted her chin, “You found something.”Clarke nodded back at her, “A little place. Yes. You’ll see it in New Polis. And you’ll meet her there too. When she’s ready to take the chip.”Abby looked away. Her arms still folded.Clarke arched an eyebrow, “Nightbloods aren’t safe here. I’m not gonna risk her life by bringing her here.”Abby pressed her lips together and looked back at her, “I was trying to get us to the ground.”“I know Mom …,” Clarke said gently, “And I get that … I do … but with a nightblood … taking bone marrow like that … it can’t be done safely … You could’ve killed somebody … a child.”Abby sighed and rubbed her eyes.“That could have been my child …,” Clarke said gently, “I can’t risk someone else trying that with her.”Abby shook her head, “No one’s gonna try that … I didn’t know the risks … Aden explained it to me …”Clarke shook her head, “I’m not taking any chances. Not with Madi. Or Lexa. I can’t risk losing them. I won’t.”Abby sighed and looked at Lexa, “What about after we take the chips … Is it safe enough then?”Lexa looked at Clarke.“I don’t know …,” Clarke answered, “We’ll have to see then … And … Lexa and I would have to discuss it.”Abby sighed again, “Well … I wanna meet my granddaughter …”And Clarke’s eyes flooded with tears at the word.She looked at Lexa.“I … hope that can happen someday …,” Lexa answered carefully, “But … in the meantime … Perhaps … someday … it … may be possible to speak with her over the radio … It would have to be arranged with Aden.”Abby nodded slowly at that.Clarke looked back at her mom, “I have to keep her safe. She’s my daughter. I know you understand that.”Abby closed her eyes and sighed.“PTSD …,” Lexa said quietly.Abby’s eyelids fluttered open.Lexa glanced at Clarke and then looked back at Abby, “Clarke has PTSD … from what she has been through … Hypervigilence is one symptom …”Abby nodded slowly, “Avoidance of external triggers … Yes. Almost everyone from the Ark has it … But with Clarke it …”“Manifests in controlling behaviors as well …,” Lexa said quietly and glanced at Clarke, “And heroic behaviors … to protect others from danger. I have it too … from my conclave … and … from other things … And similar symptoms. Everyone in this room has PTSD. And … similar symptoms …”Abby nodded and looked away, “Yes. I have it too.”Lexa put her hand on Abby’s shoulder, “Clarke is getting better … slowly. She feels safer on the ground. In control. And she is safe there. If she wasn’t, I would bring her down here myself.”Abby looked back at her.“And when you are in New Polis … you will learn to feel safe again too … in time …,” Lexa gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze, “Like Clarke is learning how to now … with me … and Madi.”Abby sighed again and nodded, looked at Clarke, “If you feel safer up there … with Lexa and Madi … then I want that for you … I won’t be here forever … when the bunker gives out … but I will be in New Polis forever. Whenever you’re ready … here or there, just reach out.”Clarke nodded a little, glanced at Lexa, “And … maybe … when I’m ready … we can talk … over the radio …”Abby squeezed Clarke’s hand and smiled at her, “I’d like that Sweetie. But … for now … could you tell me a little about Madi?”Clarke grinned, “She’s just like Lexa. She’s a mini-Lexa. She’s smart and brave and proud.”Lexa put her arm around Clarke’s shoulders, “And she is a great deal like Clarke … Strong willed. And deeply kind. She has a big heart. Clarke is teaching her everything she knows.”Abby grinned at that.The guard wrapped his knuckles on the door and Abby sighed, “Well … that’s my cue I guess …”She pulled Clarke into a tight hug, kissed her cheek and said, “I love you Clarke. And congratulations.” And then she pulled Lexa into a hug and said, “Thank you Lexa … for taking care of my girl.”Abby leaned back a little and squeezed Lexa’s shoulder, “Our girl.”Lexa grinned at her, “Thank you. For Clarke.”Clarke reached over and squeezed Abby’s arm, “Hey … are you … locked up all the time?”Abby wrinkled her nose, “I’m okay Honey. Honestly … Aden’s been … kind … And I get it … I’ve been in his position before … And … I’ve been in this situation before too … I was doing what I thought was right. So is he. I can do a few months in lock up. It’s … quiet there at least. And Marcus visits. It’s … really not that bad …”Clarke pulled her into another hug.Abby leaned back and ran her thumb across Clarke’s cheek, and then leaned forward a little and rested her forehead against Clarke’s, in the way the Grounder’s do with their family members. And the gesture made Clarke choke up a little.Abby leaned back and gave her a little smile, “May we meet again. And you be good to that little girl.”Clarke nodded, her eyes filling with tears again.Abby stepped out of the decontamination chamber and the guard escorted her back toward lockup.Aden and Gaia were still waiting outside the door, and Lexa hugged him goodbye and wished him luck with the meeting the next day. Asked him to call them over the radio that night to check in. And Clarke hugged him goodbye too.They made their way up through the hatch and out of the tunnel, and when they got to the surface, Clarke asked Lexa if she was okay to drive.Lexa nodded, “Having the flame removed is much less of an adjustment then having it put in. I am okay.”Clarke nodded a little, “Just … flash your lights if you want me to pull over.”“I will …,” Lexa gave her a little smile.Clarke looked back at her for a moment, “That stuff you said …”Lexa lifted her chin a little, “About PTSD.”“Yeah …,” Clarke answered, still looking at her.Lexa let out a little sigh, “I … was worried about you … after what Raven said … and before. I asked the flame what was wrong … what you needed.”Clarke reached out and took her hand, “And what you need too.”Lexa nodded a little, “Ai hod yu in Clarke. I … didn’t mean to embarrass you. Your mother wants to protect you. I want to protect you. You wish to protect Madi and me … If someone didn’t say it … we would be locked in an endless cycle of arguing to protect each other … Because we are all very protective … because of what we have each gone through …”Clarke lurched forward and grabbed Lexa in a tight hug. Nuzzled into her neck. Whispered, “Thank you.”Lexa squeezed her arms around her, “We will all be okay. We just need time. Peace.”Clarke leaned back a little and sighed at her, “I just need you.”Lexa squeezed her hand, “You have me. Let’s go home.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

They arrived back in the valley very late in the afternoon. Slung bags over their shoulders from the vehicles.They would unload the rest later, but for now, Lexa carried the bag full of supplies for the kitchen over one shoulder, another full of medical gear from Bekka’s lab over the other. Carried the radio from the rover in her hands. Clarke carried a bag of clothes and shoes and another of books for the kids, feeling like Santa Claus. The touch screen music player charged up from the rover tucked into her pocket.They walked the trail through the woods to the village. To home. Shooting each other little grins at the sight of the trees, the sounds and smell of the woods that they had missed so much during their time away.When they arrived, the village was quiet.Too quiet.No one was around.Clarke felt a little twinge of panic that something had happened to the kids while they’d been away, but Lexa must have seen it in her expression.“They’re fine Clarke …,” Lexa smiled at her as they walked to the house, “On a nice day like this, they are probably still out training. We should not interrupt them. This is an important opportunity for Reva and Penn to lead … and they would never let anything happen to them.”Clarke sighed and followed her up the stairs of their little house. Reminded herself: PTSD.Focussed on unpacking when they made it inside.She could see that the kids had been in the house.There was a blanket laid out in front of the fireplace.The water jugs on the counter were full and the cabinets were well stocked with food. The big bag of dehydrated corn kernels on the counter for porridge was only half full now, which was comforting. The kids had been eating breakfasts.They grabbed some rabbit jerky and sat on the porch snacking while they waited for the kids to return.And it wasn’t long before they heard voices coming up the trail to the village.Laughing.Teasing voices.Amelia and Penn were each carrying a string of fish ready for cleaning.Clarke was on her feet and down the steps in a flash.And as soon as Madi saw her, she started running, a huge smile on her face.She crashed into Clarke’s arms and Clarke picked her up and spun her around, kissed the top of her head.“Missed you,” Madi mumbled, squeezing her tight.Clarke spun her around again and then leaned down, her eyes inspecting Madi’s face, her clothes to make sure everything was in order.“Ugh … I’m fine,” Madi rolled her eyes.Clarke trailed her thumb across a yellowish streak of powder on Madi’s face and inspected it on the pad of her thumb.“It’s corn flour …,” Madi grinned, “We’ve been making a ton of it with the grinder in the barn. Penn showed us how. We’ve been trying out new recipes all week.”Clarke glanced up at Lexa, who was already surrounded by the other natblidas, giving them hugs.She made her way over to them too and pulled each one of the kids into a long hug. 7 long hugs.She leaned back a little, Reva still in her arms and asked, “How’d it go?”Reva grinned at her, “Penn and I will give you a full report over dinner. Come to the meeting house while we prepare your welcome home meal. See what we can make now.”Clarke grinned at her and picked up Tris. Lexa carried Otan and they made their way into the big building with the kids.Took a seat on one of the couches by the firepit while Xander got the fire started and the other kids got to work on dinner.And Clarke’s worries about how the kids had been doing on their own started to melt away as she watched her little brood clean fish and chop up vegetables and prepare the meal as a coordinated little unit, everyone working on their own little tasks, at their own little stations, their hands moving with confidence.It wasn’t long until the light coming in through the windows of the meeting house had started to fade into night. Until they were all eating and chatting about what they’d been up to during their time apart. What the kids had been learning in class from Penn and Reva. The field trips Penn had been taking them on to the barn to teach them about the tools there. The fighting styles Reva had been having them practice during training.Their fish dinner was a new experience.The fish was dusted with corn flour, fried in a kettle of oil over the fire, and served with veggies from the garden in warm thin wraps. Penn proudly announced that the wraps had been made with the corn flour they’d been grinding.Amelia dropped a whole plate full of the wraps all sliced up into little strips into the kettle of oil and then fished them out with a big wooden spoon with lots of holes in it. She put the stiff little strips into a big bowl, dusted them with salt, and then handed it over to Lexa.Lexa and Clarke each picked up a strip and crunched into them.“Corn chips,” Amelia announced proudly.“They’re so good,” Clarke grinned back at her, already reaching for a handful to put on her plate.“Potato chips are also quite good …,” Xander said, sliding a pile of very thin potato slices off a cutting board and into the kettle of oil.In no time, everyone was munching on crispy salted potato chips.“We’re gonna need a lot more potatoes …,” Lexa mumbled through a mouthful of chips.Callie nodded at her, “We’ve already started expanding the field …”“A corn field and a potato field …,” Reva smiled at Lexa, “Those will be Kliron Kru’s two main crops.”After their meal, Madi laid out across one of the couches, her feet in Lexa’s lap and her head in Clarke’s as Lexa told the kids about their time at Bekka’s, about New Polis, about what Aden was planning in the bunker, about seeing him and Gaia there.Clarke almost spoke up about seeing her mom there too. But she didn’t. She wasn’t ready for that yet.In her years with Madi in the valley, Clarke had said very little about her parents. Didn’t want to open that old wound about what had happened to her father, and her mother’s role in it.But … maybe someday she would tell Madi more about her mom.Abby’s words were still rolling around in her head … Abby saying she wanted tomeet her granddaughter.And Madi was Clarke’s daughter.There were a lot of things she’d probably never be ready to tell Madi about her mom … but … there were some things she might like Madi to know … That her grandmother was a doctor … Had been the one who had taught Clarke everything she knew about healing. Had been a leader too … a council member on the Ark … a chancellor of Skykru … That … she loved Clarke … loved her so fiercely … just like she loved Madi … well … maybe not exactly the same … but she loved her a whole lot …Lexa’s idea about Madi talking to Abby over the radio rolled around in her mind too.Was that a good idea?It was certainly far safer than bringing Madi down into the bunker to meet her mom.And Clarke definitely didn’t want Madi anywhere near the bunker.Even if no one there would hurt Madi once they had all taken the chips and were at peace, someday that place would be a tomb … A tomb for all the bodies of the people there when the life support systems gave out.And taking Madi there … having Madi see all the people living there … even having Madi talk to her mom over the radio might make that a little too real for her … Might make it that much harder for Madi when Abby wasn’t there to talk to over the radio anymore … when she only existed in New Polis …Maybe she was being … overprotective though …Clarke chewed her lip a little.But … if everyone followed her logic … then … everyone would try to keep their kids away from their grandparents if they could … to shield their kids from the loss of older loved ones …And … that did seem … a little crazy …Death was a part of life … Madi certainly knew that already … she lived in nature …Maybe Madi had had enough loss though … had lost her parents … her whole village to the radiation … But … maybe it was better not to shield Madi from loss entirely … and pretend like it didn’t exist …Madi reached up and smoothed out the furrow that had formed between Clarke’s eyes.“Hey …,” Madi looked up at her, “You’ve got that look on your face … What’s up?”Clarke shook her head and started running her fingers through Madi’s hair, smiled down at her softly, “Nothing Honey. All good.”Madi grinned up at her, and then called out, “Lexa … Mom’s got that look on her face.”Clarke’s hand frozen mid-stroke through Madi’s hair.Madi had never called her ‘Mom’ before.Her eyes filled with tears as she looked down into Madi’s sparkling blue-green eyes, at Madi’s little grin.
Yeah … she knew what she’d said.
Clarke sniffled back her tears.“She looks okay to me …,” Lexa looked over at them, “Those are happy tears she’s hiding.”Madi grinned up at Clarke, “Yeah … but she’s thinking too much again … Gotta keep an eye on her …”Lexa gave Madi’s ankle a gentle squeeze and smiled at Clarke, “Always.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

A few days after they got home, after dinner, they got a call from Aden over the radio.All the kids came into Clarke and Lexa’s house and he talked to them about New Polis. What it was like.“It’s so beautiful …,” his smiling voice said, “Even more beautiful than I had hoped. When you join me here … in many years … I will give you a tour of New Polis. And I can see your valley too … The village … the meeting house … your lake … I hope you will give me a tour when I join you there in person.”“We’ll take you camping all over the valley,” Callie piped up.“I would like that …,” Aden chuckled.He sounded so much like himself, which was a huge relief to Lexa. She had made his chip herself, knew the parameters of the chips, had created New Polis herself too under Bekka’s guidance … but still. Aden taking the new chip was a step into the unknown. And the last time people had taken the chips … it had so changed them …“Do not worry Lexa …,” Aden’s voice said over the radio, “All is well. I am well. And … being able to see Polis again … our world again … before the radiation … I … cannot describe the feeling … the peace it gives me … to be home again. I cannot wait for our people to see it.”“How is it going with them …,” Lexa answered, “Are they still willing to take the chips now that the chips are there and ready? Sometimes people change their minds at the last moment … when the choice becomes real …”“It is a political process now … a process of persuasion …,” Aden answered, “But they did choose this path. And I am using every technique you taught me to see it through … I have decreed that no one will be allowed to take the chip until I have had it for at least a month … if not longer … to ensure that it’s safe … Trikru have been given the role of guarding the safe where the chips are stored, to reward their loyalty to the flame … so that the other clan leaders can grumble about favoritism. Spread rumors that Trikru will be allowed to take the chips before anyone else. My health checkups with Skykru will lead to further rumors that all is well with me and that I am being overly cautious and controlling ... I expect the demands for the chips and small rebellions will begin in the next few weeks …”“Be careful …,” Lexa answered, “Even desirable rebellions are rebellions nonetheless … They can spiral … become dangerous …”“Indeed …,” Aden chuckled, “But forbidding something is the most effective way to make our people want it … And Trikru is loyal to me … They will defend me … defer to the wisdom of the flame in this matter.”Lexa sighed.“Do not worry Lexa … I have this well in hand …,” Aden answered, “And you have other concerns … chickens and corn yields and whatnot … Leave this to me.”Lexa sighed again.“Clarke?” Aden asked.“I’m here …,” Clarke answered, leaning into the mic.“Everyone but Clarke is dismissed from this meeting …,” Aden’s voice said over the speaker.The natblidas hopped up and headed out the door.After a moment, Aden asked, “Is Lexa still there?”Lexa said nothing. Folded her arms.“Yeah … She’s still here …,” Clarke answered for her.“Lexa … You are dismissed,” Aden said pointedly.Lexa looked at Clarke and silently shook her head.“One sec …,” Clarke answered and switched off the mic.“Lex … just give us a minute …,” Clarke looked at her, “He probably just wants to talk about my mom.“Lexa looked away. Not moving from her chair.Clarke smiled at her, “Madi’s slingshot is broken. She doesn’t want to bother you with it ‘cause it’s such a small thing … but you know how much she …”The legs of Lexa’s chair scraped against the floor as she stood up and walked straight to the door.“… loves it …,” Clarke grinned as she watched Lexa walk out.Clarke flipped on the mic again, “Okay … She’s gone.”“Thank you …,” Aden’s smiling voice said, and then cleared his throat a little, “You made me a promise … that you would take care of Lexa … and … I need you to honor that promise now. I would ask that you keep Lexa busy … Do not let her have too much time to think while I am working on things here … Her voice has been in my mind day and night with advice and contingency plans ever since I took back the flame … She worries … even though all is well … I can turn it off … but I don’t think she can.”Clarke looked at the door Lexa had left through …She knew Lexa worried about Aden … quietly … That Aden was on her mind … That she hadn’t wanted to leave him alone in the bunker when Aden had banished Lexa and the natblidas …But Lexa’s worrying had seemed under control as far as she’d seen …And it wasn’t like Lexa to excessively worry when there was truly nothing to worry about …Lexa had had some private conversations with Aden over the radio though.Conversations she hadn’t been privy to …“Everything’s really okay there?” Clarke asked into the mic, “Lexa’s … not really one to pester …”“Is she?” Clarke added as an afterthought.Aden probably knew Lexa better than she did about this kind of thing …They’d had so many years together … long before Clarke had gotten to the ground …And now Lexa was part of Aden’s mind …“All is well here … I swear it …,” Aden confirmed, “But still she is … She means well … I know she does … But her worry is … excessive …”Clarke nodded, “I’ll take care of her.”“It’s a pity that all is going so well there …,” Aden sighed, “She could use a good crisis to distract her.”Clarke laughed.For once in Lexa’s life, there weren’t an endless string of problems and crises to keep her mind occupied.“I’ll think of something …,” Clarke grinned.“Ask the natblidas. They can help …,” Aden said, “They know her well.” —- Clarke managed to keep Lexa thoroughly distracted that night.And the next morning, Clarke visited each of the natblidas one on one while they did their chores. Told them what Aden had asked of them, asked them to help her come up with ways to help keep Lexa distracted while he handled things in the bunker.Penn pulled Lexa into the barn to investigate the 2 bicycles she had brought back from Becca’s to figure out how they worked … which allowed Clarke to have a meeting in the meeting house with the rest of the kids.“Lexa is like a horse …,” Reva said, leaning forward a bit on the couch, “She needs to run. Exercise is the best way to keep her distracted.”“Little problems too …,” Callie chimed in, “Working with her hands … fixing things …”“Projects …,” Xander agreed, “The potato field still needs a lot of work … We could set a goal … a challenge for how much of the field we get done each week …”“Lexa likes competition too …,” Reva said thoughtfully, “If we turn things into games … competitions … Set goals and see who can reach them first …”Clarke nodded at that, “She also said she’d do trials for me … wanted it to be fair … since I did trials for her. Madi could request it.”Madi grinned, “I did like the trials … And we do have extra ones we didn’t have time to give you …”Reva hummed, “Lexa would need very difficult trials …”Clarke nodded, “Yeah … Hard to think about anything else when you’re doing all the stuff necessary to survive outdoors.”“I hate to say it …,” Amelia sighed, “… but … the best thing we could do is kidnap Clarke again … She won’t be able to worry about anything else if she’s worrying about Clarke.”The kids nodded at that.“Or you could have Lexa teach you to fight to keep her busy …,” Reva grinned at Clarke, “Keryon knows you need to learn how someday …”Madi chuckled …And Clarke shot her a glare.And then she looked away, “I don’t know … I think we might be going about this all wrong …”“How so?” Reva quirked an eyebrow.Clarke nodded to herself as she thought it through, and then looked at the kids, “Aden means well … suggesting that we keep her busy. But … Lexa always works so hard … for all of us … all the time …”“But … she likes to work …,” Callie chimed in, “We all do …”The kids all nodded at that.Even Madi nodded.Clarke smirked and shook her head at her industrious children, “I think it’s better for me to just … talk to her about it.”Xander snorted, “She will definitely resist that …”And Clarke grinned back at him for how well he knew Lexa, “She will. But … I’d rather have honesty between us than go behind her back … than tire her out or use distractions. Running from your worries … pushing them down … that doesn’t actually fix them. Even if she doesn’t wanna talk about it … it’s my job as her houman to make sure she knows she can … to … make space for her to talk about how she’s feeling …”Amelia and Reva exchanged a look.“What …,” Clarke looked at them.“This is … how we did it before …,” Amelia said carefully, “Kept her busy …”Clarke’s forehead furrowed, “Before?”“It … was hard for Lexa …,” Reva looked at her, “… when she thought you were in space … She would never talk to us about it of course. But … we all felt it. The change in her. And … the way Lexa caudled Otan … That’s why he’s so spoiled …”Clarke looked down Otan, who was sitting on the floor, completely distracted, grumbling to himself as he tried to pull apart some sort of toy his siblings had made for him.“It’s a miracle he ever learned to walk …,” Reva sighed, “Lexa carried him around so much … He was very young of course … when he came to us … just a baby. But she carried him with her nearly everywhere in a sling she wore … Titus would’ve …”Reva glanced at the kids, and then cleared her throat, “Even Gaia had to talk to her about it … Not spoiling him so.”“I think it helped her …,” Amelia countered, “Taking care of Otan …”“It was really hard for you too … that first year …,” Madi looked at Clarke.Clarke nodded.The first year in the valley had been very hard for her … She’d kept herself busy cataloguing the valley, taking care of Madi … But still … worrying about Lexa in the bunker … being locked out … away from her person … the comfort of her presence … Plus she’d had all of her own demons to deal with …Apparently Lexa had had a hard year too … without her person to help her through everything she’d been going through …How alike they were …Clarke in the valley, pouring her love into Madi in Lexa’s absence … Lexa caudling Otan in the bunker …There was something so sweet and heartbreaking in the idea of Lexa carrying Otan in a sling with her everywhere …God … if Clarke had been there … they would’ve raised him together … Otan and Tris ... though she was a year older …“We tried to keep her busy … and then … the tunnel …,” Xander added, “At night … she would hammer away at the stone every night to make the tunnel … Sometimes all night …”“Your mother helped …” Amelia looked at her, “She helped a lot I think …”Clarke’s eyebrows raised at that.“Lexa doesn’t have a nomon …,” Amelia added quietly, “Not like we do …”Clarke pressed her lips together, thinking about what Lexa had said at Becca’s house … about being an orphan … about not having parents like Clarke had … parents who loved her …And then she remembered the last thing she had said to her mother over the radio from Becca’s lab before the death wave hit Polis … asking her to take care of Lexa …‘Find reasons to be around her … Make sure she’s eating enough and … getting enough sleep and … protect her … like you would protect me … She’s me okay? From now on she’s me … She’s your daughter …’Well, ‘I love you Mom’ had been the very last thing she’d said to her mom … but the request had been just before that … Before Clarke had known whether she would survive the radiation … And her mom had agreed … Had apparently kept that promise … Had taken care of Lexa in the bunker … Enough that the kids had even noticed …And Clarke felt a pang of guilt for being so hard on her mom … For saying she wouldn’t risk letting Madi anywhere near her … For blaming her for Luna after Aden had revealed that she’d died from Abby’s extraction of her bone marrow … Blaming her for that wasn’t fair when it was totally possible that Abby hadn’t known that extracting bone marrow from a natblida could cost their life …At the time, back at the lab, Abby hadn’t even been able to inject the nightblood serum in Emori because she’d been too afraid that Emori wouldn’t survive the radiation test …Clarke had had to do it for her because her mom couldn’t do it …And when she’d given herself the injection instead … Abby had refused to do the radiation test on Clarke … Had shattered the testing chamber …
Shit …
She … almost certainly owed her mom an apology … Had been too hard on her …Had assumed the worst of her.“If … she would speak of such things with anyone …,” Amelia looked at her, “It would be you. She wouldn’t with us.”Clarke nodded, “It’s settled then … My houman, my responsibility.” —- The next day, after their chores were done, Clarke took Lexa for a walk to go collect nuts from a grove of trees for a new set of experiments … To see if they could figure out a way to crack the hard shells in a way that didn’t burn more calories than the nuts would give.And after they had collected a sackful, Clarke and Lexa walked the trail back to their home hand in hand, under the trees.And then Clarke tugged her off the main trail to a little detour, up the slope of a little hillside that overlooked the valley.She tugged Lexa down to sit in the soft grass beside her in a shady spot, and Lexa plucked two blades of sweetgrass and handed Clarke one to chew.They sat there for a while in silence.Chewing their sweetgrass.Watching the occasional bird sail by on the breeze.Clarke looked out at the view as she said quietly, “You know … wives are s'posed to worry about stuff together …”Lexa let out a soft chuckle.“What …” Clarke looked at her.“It’s just … a very old fashioned word …,” Lexa gave her a little smile, “‘Wives’ …”Clarke smirked back at her, “Well … maybe I’m old fashioned then … ‘cause I like it … Or maybe I just like any word that means you’re mine …”She leaned over and nudged Lexa’s shoulder with her own, “No changing the subject though …”Lexa sighed.“Aden’s worried about you …” Clarke said gently, “I’m worried about you too …”Lexa shook her head a little, “Don’t be. I’m fine.”Clarke looked at her, “I don’t believe you. Aden has you in his head … and he says the you in his head is worrying about him unnecessarily … is kind of … pestering him with advice …”Lexa’s gaze shifted to the grass between her feet.Clarke waited a moment, and then nudged her shoulder against Lexa’s again, “I know what it’s like you know … To worry about someone in the bunker … You can talk to me …”Lexa was quiet for a very long time.But Clarke just waited.And then Lexa said quietly, “Maybe … the me in his mind just … doesn’t want him to feel alone …” she swallowed “When I ascended … I was alone … and it was … hard … And … I promised him that he wouldn’t have to lead alone … That … it wouldn’t be like that … Not for him. He would have the other natblidas …”“Lexa …” Clarke reached over and squeezed her hand, said gently, “Hey … It’s not like that … Not at all … Aden didn’t have to do what you did …”Lexa looked out at the valley and shook her head a little.“And you gave him something you never had …,” Clarke said gently, “A choice …”Lexa looked back at her darkly, “And if I’d had a choice? Do you really think I would’ve chosen differently?”Lexa looked out at the valley again, “I never would’ve run from the conclave as Luna did. Never. I accepted it. All of it. For the coalition … For … So don’t pity me Clarke … I have no … illusions about what I am … about what I have done … And neither should you.”Clarke lifted her chin, “I know you hated the conclave. And I know you can’t admit that it was too much for you … And I know why you can’t admit that …”Lexa’s jaw clenched, her eyes still fixed on the valley.“A 12 year old …,” Clarke said quietly, “Whose first act as Heda was to cover her back with tattoos for the other natblidas … That tells me everything I need to know about you …”“Stop …” Lexa whispered, old memories flitting through her brain … memories that had been buried so deep … Her hands … her arms … covered in black blood … Shouting at Titus for the first time in her life … in a voice that hadn’t even sounded like her own … Shouting at him to get the inksketcha … as she ripped off her black stained armor … her blood stained clothes … Lying face down on the furs … murmuring to the inksketcha what she wanted the symbols to look like … Lying there for hours … barely able to feel the needles on her back … Barely able to feel anything at all …Clarke was wrong though.Everyone was wrong about that detail of her ascension.It wasn’t her first act as Heda.She’d gotten the tattoos immediately after the conclave … while she was still bleeding … before she’d taken the flame … before she’d recited the lineage …It wasn’t her first act as Heda.It was her last act as Lexa.Or was supposed to be …Titus hadn’t denied her request.The way he’d looked at her … after the conclave … He’d looked so pale … like he might retch at any moment … even as his eyes shone with pride … Looked at her like she was the answer to all his prayers … even after she’d just slaughtered his children … even while she was still covered in their blood … when he knew better than anyone who she really was … Was the only one left who knew … who she had been … before the conclave … The way Titus had looked at her in that moment … it made her so angry … Maybe because she knew that it was true … She was going to answer his prayers … was going to build a new kind of world for her people … for all people … a world they hadn’t even dared to hope for … But in that moment … She could’ve killed him for looking at her like that … had used what little was left of her adrenaline to yell at him instead … to demand that the ledger … the cost for that new world be etched onto her skin …Things could feel … so very wrong … and still be so very necessary … all at the same time …Wrong and necessary weren’t mutually exclusive …Lexa felt Clarke’s arms wrap around her and tried to shrug her off, “What are you doing? Stop …”Clarke’s arms squeezed tighter around her, “You’re crying Heda …”“I’m not-“ Lexa baulked, but then realized it was true, and hiccuped out anyway, “I’m not.”Clarke pulled her in closer, kissed the top of her head, mumbled into her hair, “I know … I know … You’re fine …”She held Lexa for … a while … while Lexa took shaky breaths and … didn’t cry …Until the memories started to fade back into the deepest recesses of her brain … until that molten ember in Lexa’s chest hissed and bubbled and started to cool from the feeling of Clarke’s arms around her …And then Lexa murmured out, “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”“Lexa …,” Clarke whispered and kissed the top of her head again, “You don’t have to apologize … You get to have feelings … About anything … About … everything …”Lexa let out a sigh and leaned back … wiped the not tears off her cheeks, “I don’t like it.”Clarke barked out a laugh, “No one does Babe.”“You do,” Lexa huffed, “You love feelings.”Clarke leaned in against her, grinning, “You’ll get used to it … kind of …”“Maybe …” Lexa murmured.“Come here … lay down …” Clarke patted her thigh.Lexa sighed and wordlessly laid down in the soft grass, laid her head in Clarke’s lap … looking up at her.And Clarke’s fingers got to work, running through Lexa’s hair … scratching at her scalp a little in the way Lexa liked, “I know you can just … power through anything on your own … But you don’t have to do that … Not anymore. And definitely not with me …”Lexa sighed and closed her eyes, “It doesn’t make sense. I know it doesn’t … Aden is capable … More than capable … It’s just …”“It doesn’t have to make sense …,” Clarke said quietly, running her fingers through Lexa’s hair, “You’re human. You’ve spent your whole life looking after these kids …”Lexa looked away, looked out at the valley, and Clarke kept running her fingers through Lexa’s wavy hair.“Aden doesn’t need me,” Lexa said quietly, “He has … another me … And … I’m not Heda anymore … It’s just … over. I never thought about what would come after … There wasn’t supposed to be an after … Not for me …”Clarke’s lips pressed together.She knew that was true.She’d seen it herself in their time together before praimfaya.Lexa’s life had been filled with uncertainty.Anything could happen.Wars to fight.Deals to be made.A peace to build.Clan disputes to resolve.Challengers to be fought.Justice to be delivered …A rogue AI taking over people’s minds …A nuclear apocalypse …Whatever happened, Lexa was supposed to just … take care of it.There was only one certainty in Lexa’s life.That she would be Heda until it killed her.And if her life was anything like the commanders who had come before her, that ending would be violent. And soon.She was gonna march through her world as Heda … bending that world to her will … giving away pieces of herself … stuffing them into the cracks of her broken world to keep it all glued together … until she ran out of pieces … Until one day … she walked straight into her own grave.She wouldn’t live to see her natblidas grow up.Would never grow old.Wouldn’t live to see even half of the plans she’d laid the foundations for come to fruition …And for that reason, they never really talked about the future.Because their wasn’t one when Lexa was Heda.There was no after.Until now …And hearing Lexa acknowledge that … that it was over … that she had a future … an after …Clarke felt a wave of something swelling in her chest … let out a shaky breath that felt like it had an actual weight to it … a breath that she had maybe been holding ever since Nia had challenged Lexa to a fight to the death in Polis so long ago … A breath that must have weighed a hundred pounds … a heavy breath of … relief …Lexa looked up at her, reached up and swept away the tears on Clarke’s cheeks with a gentle thumb and said quietly, “Who’s crying now …”“Not me …,” Clarke grinned down at her, “I’m fine.”Lexa huffed.And then took Clarke’s hand and started pressing soft kisses across her knuckles.“Do you ever talk about anything other than your death?” Clarke looked down at her.“No …,” Lexa murmured petulantly, pressing more soft kisses across her knuckles.Clarke used her free hand to pinch Lexa.And Lexa’s eyes narrowed up at her menacingly.And Clarke had to laugh.Because Lexa’s glare was so much less intimidating when her head was in Clarke’s lap, when she had Clarke’s hand clutched in her own and pressed against her chest like she wasn’t gonna give it back.“It’s hard to imagine that the world can go on without us …,” Clarke said quietly, running her fingers through Lexa’s hair, “But it does. You gave your whole life to being Heda … gave it everything you had … and you were amazing at it … It wasn’t just a job to you … And that makes it so much harder to let go … But you’re so much more than Heda, Lexa … You always were.”Lexa chewed her lip.“And you’re so much more than that to me … to the kids …,” Clarke looked down at her, “You know you’re more than Heda to them … They adore you …”Lexa blinked back tears.“And Aden …,” Clarke smiled down at her, “He still needs you … not Heda you … This you. Because he loves you … Because you’re his family … You made them into a family …”Lexa tried to blink back more tears, but it was no use, they were already coming, and said quietly, “Aden was the first.”“The first … The oldest?” Clarke asked.Lexa shook her head a little, “Well … that too. But … he was the first fyucha I ever saw.”“Fyucha?” Clarke’s forehead furrowed.“Smaller than a goufa …,” Lexa looked up at her, “Smaller than … the smallest …”“A baby …,” Clarke grinned down at her, “Fyucha. Future.”Lexa dipped her chin.“How old were you?” Clarke asked.“Maybe 8 …,” Lexa answered quietly, “I was in the kitchen … One of the cooks gave me treats sometimes … And a fleimkepa scout came in with Aden, wrapped in a blanket. She showed me the right way to hold him … let me hold him while she ate.”Lexa’s hand fidgeted on her stomach, “Aden was … He was so … small …”Clarke grinned at the warmth coloring Lexa’s words, at the shade of childlike disbelief still there, “He made a big impression on you …”“He was so small …,” Lexa repeated quietly, “Helpless. Precious. Like … he was made for … a different kind of world …”Lexa sighed and closed her eyes, “He’s not helpless now. Far from it. I know that … but …”“We worry …,” Clarke said quietly, scratching at her scalp a little.Lexa nodded a little, and then said quietly, “I had many questions for Anya after I saw Aden … about babies … Did Trikru have babies? Where did they come from …”Clarke laughed.“She was not helpful …” Lexa murmured, “Said I needn’t concern myself with such things … Titus was even less helpful …”“I can’t imagine either of them giving you that talk …,” Clarke grinned down at her, “Not that you needed it …”Lexa looked up at her with a teasing smile, “A commander must be informed Clarke … Must be aware of where youngens come from …”Clarke grinned down at her, “Well … in my experience … they just magically appear when you need them most … A little wild girl just shows up and … leads you into a bear trap and steals all your shit … And it’s love at first sight.”Lexa chuckled up at her.Clarke ran her fingers lightly down Lexa’s cheek, “Or … one day … the woman you love just … brings you a whole heap of kids … And pretty soon … you can’t imagine your life without them.”“I’m … so glad you like them …,” Lexa looked up at her earnestly.Clarke grinned and ran her fingers through Lexa’s hair, “How could I not? They’re yours … Every single one of them has a piece of you …”“Maybe not Otan …,” Lexa said quietly, “He’s more like you …”Clarke’s fingers froze in her hair, “Excuse me?”Lexa grinned up at her, “He is … very willful … Makes his feelings known … to all …”Clarke arched an eyebrow at her, “Reva says that’s ’cause you spoiled him …”Lexa grinned up at her, “Yes. You two are very much alike …”Clarke snorted indignantly and slapped at Lexa’s side.Lexa sighed wistfully and took Clarke’s hand, “He is willful and proud … outspoken and demanding … and shows great cleverness … when he’s figuring out how to get his way …” she pressed a soft kiss against the back of Clarke’s hand, “He has your spirit. And if he grows up to be like you … it will be one of my greatest joys …”Clarke grinned down at her in spite of herself.“It was your mother who spotted it first …,” Lexa looked up at her, “He … was a fussy baby … So I asked for help from the best nomon I knew … She showed me how to calm him … Taught me all the tricks she used with you … They all worked …”Clarke’s eyes flooded with tears as she looked down at her.And Lexa just looked back at her silently.“I’ll make it right with her … Call her …” Clarke sniffled and wiped away a tear, “That’s what you want right …”Lexa squeezed Clarke’s hand, “I think … it’s what we both want ...”Clarke nodded, “I’ll try.”Lexa closed her eyes, and just enjoyed the feeling of Clarke running her fingers through her hair.“You dreamed up a whole new world for your people Lexa … Two new worlds …” Clarke said quietly, “Now … you get to dream up a new one for you … for us …”Lexa looked up at her, “You make me want to.”Clarke grinned down at her, “You make me want to too.” —- After dinner with the kids that evening, Clarke asked Otan and Tris if they would come sleep in Madi’s old room at the house. And they happily agreed.And that night, Clarke and Lexa sat in Madi’s old bedroom with Otan and Tris snuggled in beside them in the bed, wearing their pajamas.And Clarke began a new tradition.One she had been just dying to start …Bedtime stories.She told Otan and Tris the story her father had once told her … the story of a lost boy named Peter Pan who never grew up … who was brave and proud and mischievous and clever … who snuck around to open windows at night to listen to the bedtime stories that parents told their children … and who flew into the open window of a home one night where the Darling children, Wendy, John and Michael Darling, were sleeping.Told them about how Peter had been chasing his shadow, and how when he caught it and couldn’t reattach it to himself, he accidentally woke up Wendy with his crying. And she helped him sew his shadow back on.She told them how Wendy was so amused by Peter and his strange ways that she offered him a kiss … And Peter held out his hand … because he didn’t know what a kiss was … which made both Otan and Tris giggle … And Clarke kissed the tops of their heads … Told them Wendy didn’t know what to do … so she gave Peter a handkerchief … And Peter asked Wendy if she wanted a kiss … And when she said she did, Peter handed her a button. Which made the kids giggle again.She told them about how Wendy told Peter she knew many bedtime stories … and Peter loved bedtime stories … So he invited Wendy and her brothers to come to his home in Neverland … That he sprinkled fairy dust on the Darling children and taught them how to fly by thinking happy thoughts … and they followed him out the window and across the night sky … following the second star to the right, and straight on till morning … until they arrived at Peter’s island of lost boys … where there were little fairies that could fly and mermaids with fish tails and pirates and a kru of native people, and lions and tigers and bears and crocodiles … and Wendy and her brothers went on adventures there with Peter the lost children. —- Otan and Tris only made it through one adventure before they fell fast asleep.And after they’d tucked in the children and settled into their own bed, Lexa looked at Clarke and said quietly, “I’ve never heard that story before.”Clarke smiled back at her, reached out and ran her fingers through Lexa’s hair, “It was one of my favorites when I was little …”Lexa smiled at her.And Clarke reached down and squeezed her hand, “It’s not so different from our story … the story of lost children who make a family … Only in ours … it’s not children who never grew up … it’s children who had to grow up too fast …”Lexa pressed her lips together, “And this is Neverland …”“Yes,” Clarke smiled at her.“What happens to Peter and Wendy?” Lexa asked.Clarke let out a sigh, “Wendy falls in love with him … she loves Peter so much … but … he’s not grown up enough to understand how she loves him … and he doesn’t want to grow up. So Wendy and her brothers end up going back home. Peter doesn’t want her to go … but … he’s too proud to ask her to stay … And when he takes them home and sees how much their parents missed them … he doesn’t say anything … and lets them go … Wendy’s parents offer to adopt Peter. But he’s afraid they’ll turn him into a man. Wendy gets upset that he won’t stay, so Peter promises her he’ll return every Spring … to take her back to Neverland for visits … And he does come a few times … But when the next Spring comes … Peter doesn’t show up … And it breaks Wendy’s heart …”Lexa frowned.“He’d been so busy with all his adventures in Neverland that … he’d forgotten her …”Lexa frowned harder.“He finally remembers …,” Clarke looked back at her, “And when he goes to her house to find her … he sees that Wendy has grown up … has a husband … and a daughter of her own. He asks her to come to Neverland with him, but she tells him she’s forgotten how to fly, and it breaks Peter’s heart. He sits down on the floor and cries.”“I don’t like that ending,” Lexa grumbled.Clarke nodded, “Me either … I cried when I heard that part … But that’s not the ending I’m gonna tell our kids. We’ll make our own story … And it’ll be so much better …”Lexa scooted closer to her.And then wrapped an arm around her … and then wrapped a leg around her … and then nuzzled her nose in against Clarke’s neck.“Peter shouldn’t be so stubborn …” Lexa murmured sleepily, “And Wendy should stay in Neverland … Teach Peter how to love …”Clarke grinned, “She really should …”   The End ❤️