It all comes down to a choice. Always. As Lexa had put it, it was head or heart, and love would always be weakness in this sense.
To be a leader, to be a commander, decisions should be made with her head. This was never about what she wanted, what she needed, it was about the lives of her people. And before the last 24 hours she would have said that decisions made with her heart were for her people.
It comes down to this, she was spent, broken, barely functioning with a dead mans watch upon her wrist counting down her time. Ironic, seeing as it's usually still hands had never counted up in the first place, how come it has any time to let go of? Her pulse is frantic, irregular and she half thinks she's hallucinating when a shadow comes to slay her demons.
And her failing heart knows, it just knows, that here is the very reason that she wants to live, not just survive. And Lexa comes like a healing force, a candle in dark ruins of a place and she takes Clarke's outstretched hand and pulls her to her and she's not a ghost, she's not an image, she's warm and she's solid and Clarke feels more here than she's felt since Lexa's body was carried away.
The choice is simple, Lexa doesn't even consider it an option and it's only out of desperate want and agonising grief that Clarke works it out. The chip contains Lexa's soul, her mind. Her body was real inside of the system, made so by more than just codes. It had intricately rewritten her biology, she was breathing, her heart was beating, she was alive. And Clarke doesn't need to be told the science. If Clarke removed the chip from her body and placed it back where it belongs, at the back of Lexa's neck, the system would implode. The technology would be wiped, save for Lexa's code, kept safe inside the chip, kept safe inside her body.
And she staggers at the thought of it and Lexa loses her calm when she sees the realisation in Clarke's eyes.
"No." She grits out firmly, tries to get Clarke to carry on, to keep moving, to get out of there as quickly as possible, to find the kill switch.
And that's the dawning of reality, as Clarke falls again, her organs protesting, her lungs struggling to keep moving against the lack of oxygen.
A mixture of red and black blood runs out of her nose and as her limbs turn weak, she knows her choice.
If she saves Lexa, everyone who had taken the key will be erased and there's a chance that that even includes herself.
Her people will die so that she can save the one she loves.
And Lexa's speaking now, urging her to stop because she has to let her go, because her time is up. She reminds Clarke of the cost, of the lives she'd take, of the race she'd wipe out and you cannot bring back the dead Clarke, it's not right.
But she can bring back the dead and the black blood trickling through her system is thicker than the thinner red she's used to and there's not enough of it to be able to breathe let alone think.
She's aware she's shaking, she's aware she's shutting down, but Lexa's holding her and as she loses consciousness she's holding her again in a room full of sunlight and softness a moment brought back from a past she could have had.
And she needs that, she needs enough soft touches and skin on skin and light to last her a lifetime.
Her mind clouds, the lack of oxygen almost fatal, and it makes her choice that much harder. She's irrational, her heart will always win this battle, it can survive longer than her head. It will beat more times than her thoughts will process, it will still beat when her mind shuts down.
"Please Clarke. Not this. Not for me." Lexa pleads, like she's unworthy, like she doesn't now how much she's worth.
Lexa doesn't know how it feels, she doesn't know that Clarke's felt empty since she watched the life drain out of Lexa's middle, she doesn't know that Clarke wants to pull her heart out of her chest to make the emptiness real, to make it stop hurting. Lexa doesn't know how it feels to have her soul torn apart and still have to live on.
But she does, all she does is drop her eyes and Clarke knows that she does. Lexa doesn't say another word but words are heard anyway. I ache Clarke, I ache.
Clarke's heart jumps back into rhythm, her body stilling as thick night blood surges through her veins, heavy and weighted and she wonders if this is what Lexa feels like all of the time. She wonders if it's this hard for Lexa's heart to beat but she knows that it is. She's learnt from the best that betrayal comes from making the right decision. Head or heart?
Clarke nods, tries to contain her awe at getting to see that exact colour green again. With a new found strength they make it out, to a dead-end and the fury and the dread that should be there isn't because the watch is still ticking down but she wants every second of her time filled with Lexa. And when her people stand before her, ready to stop her, ready to hurt her, she wonders if she's made the right choice.
And her escape comes through in the shape of Raven and she knows what she has to do now. She prays to a God she never believed existed until she learnt of Lexa's existence. She puts all her hope into one side of her chest and all of her pain and guilt into the other.
Lexa turns to go, to keep her from getting hurt, because she's safe now, with Lexa she would always be safe but Clarke can't let her go.
"Lexa, wait." And one side of her body is trembling now, bones falling to pieces beneath her skin.
"I love you." She whimpers and watches as Lexa's eyes turn molten, watches as she struggles to maintain her strong expression.
"I'll always be with you." She counters and all Clarke can hear is her voice from the past.
Victory stands on the back of sacrifice.
And Lexa tugs but Clarke won't let go, she uncurls her other hand and it's covered in red and black blood, the chip lying in the mess of it.
Before she can protest, Clarke's pressed her knife to Lexa's skin, pressed the flame into her open flesh and Lexa's fight comes too late. I bring life, Clarke's shaking fingers say.
She presses into Lexa to keep her still, wraps her arms around her like this is the last moment of peace she'll ever get. The selfless need to be selfish sometimes.
"What have you done?" Lexa cries, and her head is shaking in a constant no but the ground is shaking too and Lexa can't fight against Clarke's arms, she can't, not when she wants to be in them.
Tears fall and Clarke whispers apologies and,
"You're safe, it's ok." But it's not because Clarke's just destroyed hundreds to save one.
"I never wanted to live in a world without you." Lexa tells her and she never wanted to inflict upon Lexa that exact pain that she felt but the choice was never really a choice in the first place.
The world needs Lexa more than it ever needed Clarke.
So it crumbles, and everything turns to dust. But it's ok because Lexa is grasping Clarke like she's trying to keep her from falling apart, like maybe she understands Clarke's reasoning, like maybe she loves her just as much. And ash doesn't have the power to burn skin that's already burning.
And in the blackness, Clarke sees numbers and letters and formulas that make her head spin, in the blackness she hears a battle cry.
"Clarke." And there's only one that can say her name like that, like everyone who's said it before had got it wrong. There's only one that can say her name and mean it.
There's a pressure on her arm and a sharp stab of relief before there's hands on her face and the lightness of her own blood as it fills her body again.
Her eyes open and before her is Lexa. Heda. Commander. There's no fury, no anger just green eyes.
And she just smiles.
"You're impossible." She hears and she looks around to see her people, wide eyed and stumbling but alive.
She sends another silent prayer this time to the girl who'd really saved all of her people. This time to Raven who had saved every single person the city of light had consumed.
"I think," Clarke mumbles, when both her and Lexa have healed, when there's no more blood on anyone's hands, "I think we owe our people nothing more."