She stares up at the stars and you stare at her, watching how her profile gradually changes as the moon rises higher in the sky. If she feels your eyes she does not acknowledge them, and you wonder where it is her thoughts have taken her. Yours meander far, imagining what shade of green her eyes might be if she were wreathed in bright spring grass, not the hard, brown things you lay in now, left behind under the melting snow. She is often winter, you think - cold but beautiful, sometimes harsh and often quiet, supremely pure and simultaneously deadly...but then there are moments. You had heard people talk of “indian summers” before, but you never thought they were real until the warmth of this last week. And you think that this is how you would describe moments like this, when her lips are no longer set in that commanding line, her jaw relaxed, her eyes distant and unfocused. These are her indian summers, when the icy weight of her leadership melts away and she is soft and delicate and so, so young.
You are both so, so young.
The lines of her face fascinate you and your hand itches for charcoal because none of your sketches, none of them have done her any justice. None of them have quite captured the slope of her nose or the rise of her cheekbones. Her eyes are deeper set than yours, you think, and framed in thick dark lashes that skirt her skin when she blinks. Absently you wonder how they might feel if they fluttered against your neck. Absently, you wonder if you might better capture her lines if you were to reach out and trace them with your fingertips.
When she speaks it startles you. Her voice is soft, barely more than a whisper, but you feel as though you have been caught in the midst of something incredibly intimate. In reality she has not stopped looking at the sky, but you look away sheepishly anyway. Your face burns, but you think it is too dark for her to see.
“Let us go then, you and I,” she murmurs quietly, and there is something in her voice you have not heard before and are uncertain if you recognize...because Lexa has never sounded as though she longed for something before. “When the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table.”
You know these words, you realize; they sound to you like a half-remembered dream, and your brow furrows as you try desperately to recall it. You think as she goes on, reciting lines about muttering retreats, overwhelming questions, yellow smoke and Michelangelo, and then all at once they come back to you.
“And indeed there will be time to wonder ‘Do I dare?’ and ‘Do I dare?’” She does not move as you take over, and though you do not look at her you are certain she is still watching the sky. “Time to turn back and descend the stair, with a bald spot in the middle of my hair…”
The rest flees you as you recall a quiet night in her chambers, two girls hidden from each other among the pile of her furs and fabrics, and the quiet fear in her voice. You look at Lexa, knowing that she wonders if she will have the luxury of knowing what it is to have her hair thin, to have it grow grey and brittle at her temples. You fall quiet, and she does not pick up the strain again.
Several moments pass before she says, so quietly, “I spent much of my childhood reading."
There are more words on her lips, you know, and you can almost see them as her lips move once, then a second time without sound. You wait patiently, and she begins again. “We do not have many books left. The battles that have ensued since the Great Fires and the constant threat of the elements means that what few my people have scavenged over the decades are often lost or damaged. But there is a library of sorts, here in Polis. I went through much effort in my past life to consolidate what still survived; I was able to reap much of the rewards in this one.” For the first time since you slumped into the brittle grass her gaze returns to earth, and her eyes settle on you. There is a small, subtle smile hiding in the corners of her lips, and something in you aches. It is not an unpleasant feeling. “It was the only way I could be made to focus on my English lessons.”
“Is that why you sound like Shakespeare when you talk?” you ask with a grin of your own, and what slight curve her lips had taken on disappears in a moment of confusion. You sigh, and think of the heavy volume your father had kept on the shelf above your apartment’s desk. Vaguely you wonder if your mom had saved it, if maybe it wasn’t sitting amongst her gathered things at Camp Jaha. You wonder if you could one day give it to Lexa. “Guess that one didn’t survive, then.”
She gives a slight nod as the confusion fades, and then her eyes return to the heavens. You watch her as a thought occurs to you, and a laugh bubbles from your throat before you can stop it. Her confusion is back again, and she looks as though she’s afraid you’re laughing at her.
“No, no,” you say, waving away her unspoken worry as you shake your head. The laughter, small to begin with, is already fading as you say, “It’s just - I never would’ve imagined you in English class. That’s something we had on the Ark. All the kids would sit for, like, forty-five minutes and listen to a teacher drone on about whatever play or story was assigned that week.” You look at her, your smile still shining in the moonlight. “It’s a scene someone like you doesn’t really fit in.”
For a moment Lexa looks at you, and then she’s straightening her shoulders and stiffening her jaw in an indignant show that nearly makes you giggle again. Her chin tipped to the sky, she says, “Our lessons did not consist of stories. They were meant for battle. Our warriors are taught so they can understand their enemy’s calls on the field. Our leaders are taught in order to forge pacts across clans. Our medics are taught--”
“So they can save lives, yada yada,” you interrupt, and you can’t help yourself, really. You’ve anticipated the flash of minor annoyance in her eyes and it makes your smile all the wider. “And yet here you are, reciting poetry .”
The frown on her lips is a small thing as she looks away from you again, and you know she has no response, no defense. Victorious and feeling significantly lighter for having shown the hole in her commanding facade, you look to the stars and start to trace the constellations she’s taught you. After some time she says in that soft voice, “That poem - the Love Song - is among my favorites.” Again she pauses, and you wonder if she is censoring herself - or if, perhaps, she is overcoming the instinct to do so. You find you hope desperately for the latter. “I didn’t care much for it when I was younger, but I discovered it again a few years ago. At the time I was…” You do not think you’ve ever seen her so uncertain. “I was becoming aware of what it meant to be Heda . Of what it would cost me.”
Her eyes shine in the moonlight and you think of Costia, of this lively girl you will never meet. You imagine her with bright eyes, full of hope, full of the certainty of the goodness in others, unaffected and unmarred by the violence of this world. You think of Finn. Lexa exhales. “The...anxiety, and the desperation, of that poem allowed me to imagine that I was not alone. That there was another who was afraid of and angered by her every attempt to justify her life.”
Once the urge comes, you have no willpower to resist it. Your hand slides from where it rests atop your stomach and seeks out hers in the grass. When your fingers touch, ungloved, unhidden, her eyes snap to look at you in a mixture of surprise and confusion. But, your pulse moving faster than it should have for such a small gesture, you do not flinch away. You lace your fingers with hers and, after a moment, she squeezes your hand in return.
“I know how painful it can be to think you’re the only one who understands,” you say, and there is a slight wobble in your voice that surprises you. You pause to clear it away, and say a little stronger, “That you’re the only one who knows what it’s like.” Your eyes had settled on your joined hands, but now you lift your gaze to meet hers. That strength in your voice breaks immediately. “It’s a relief to know that I’m not.”
You do not think you can name the look in her eye, but that same subtle smile sits in the corners of her lips again. After a moment her eyes return to the sky and she says, an unmistakable fondness in her voice, “I often wonder how many times I saw your Ark pass across the nighttime sky. How many times I saw your home without ever knowing it, knowing you.” Before you can respond she looks at you again, and you are transfixed. “I am glad you fell from the sky, Clarke.”
She has stolen the breath from your lungs. Even if you had it, you do not think you have words with which to use it. So you nod, a smile on your lips, and you squeeze her hand. “Me too.”
This is a lie. There hasn’t been a day that you haven’t wished, at least once, that you could return to Before. That you could be at home in the sky with your mom and your dad, with Wells and your friends, that you could laugh and live out your life never having taken someone else’s. But Lexa is here, her palm warm beneath your hand, her fingers powerful and anchoring in yours, and you think to yourself...you think that, maybe, she makes it all bearable.