Chapter 6
The most urgent wounds were taken care of, and Clarke soon had convinced Lexa to let her interrogate their captives. Some of Lexa's men had protested, but their objections, while listened to, were soon ignored by the Commander. Clarke wanted to know as much as anyone else what the hell they thought they were doing by attacking their allies, and a familiar face might be of help. Both Clarke and Lexa hoped that Bellamy at least would agree to talk to her, since they had lead the Hundred together and parted as friends.
Bellamy, however, turned out not to be the honest, loyal friend Clarke made him out to be – not that Lexa has any expectations from a man who would kill his allies without hesitating – and when he started blaming Clarke for his own mistakes, she struggled with herself not to cut this interrogation short by slicing his throat. Costia would have probably remarked that killing her friends, no matter how despicable they were, was not an efficient way to woe a girl, but they were way past that. But how dare he accuse Clarke, who'd only been trying to recover from an act she never should have had to commit, who never asked to command in the first place, though Lexa honestly thought she was made for it. How dare he accuse her when all she ever did was to protect her people, down to the past few days, and in spite of her own needs.
He wasn't the Bellamy she'd heard about when they fought against Mount Weather together. He'd never seemed the kind to kill so many allies and innocents in cold blood. Then again, he had, but so had Clarke, and she would have given him the benefit of the doubt, as she would have done the same. That was for his people. This was madness. It was clear to Lexa now how he took charge from the first because he got off on power, when Clarke just wanted to the best for others. She remembered Clarke saying it was for Octavia, but it seemed he was not the Bellamy Clarke knew either. But it wasn't for her to fix him.
“Oh, it's my fault now!”, Clarke interrupted his whining and Lexa's line of thought. “Sure, I left. You agreed to it! Not that I needed your permission, but you supported me! You had a Chancellor, you had the others, O was safe, I didn't abandon you! And then I secured these warriors to protect you! We were bringing you revenge, the Ice Queen's body – what the hell do you think I was doing staying in Polis?!”
When he implied rather rudely that all she was there for was sleeping with Lexa, the Commander would have hit him were it not for Clarke's hand on her arm and her “let me handle it.”
She was pale with rage and gritting her teeth when she said, “I am done apologizing for myself. I am not responsible for you, Bellamy! I did not vote for Pike, or trust him with guns to hunt down our allies! I'm sorry for Gina and the others but that was the Ice Nation. And damnit,you're intelligent enough, don't you even remember the size of the Coalition army when we had it at our door because of Finn? What did you think would happen? D'you think killing a few would help you get peace, of all things? Or did you think you'd kill every last one of them when it came down to it. I'm not the one to blame if you lost your brain down at Mount Weather.”
She stormed out without another look. Lexa on the other hand studied him a moment before joining Clarke outside. He did have the good grace to look pitiful, but that wasn't helping her decision-making.
She caught up with Clarke at the limit of their camp, staring into the distance with her back to her.
“Clarke.”
“Leave me alone a moment, please.”
Lexa could hear her voice waver – she must be that close to tears, and Lexa wanted to do something about it, to soothe her pain; but she was not welcome. Hell, she was responsible for that pain.
“As you wish.” She was about to turn back when she felt she had to add: “I'm sorry I put you through this. He had no right to say this. You do what you can, your people's mistakes are not your fault.”
“What if they are.” Clarke partly turned towards her, and her cheeks glistened with tears. Yet Lexa could not rush to her, hug her (as Costia would so easily do), offer her the comfort she deserved. Not here, not among all these warriors who needed, expected, her constant show of strength. She never hated her role more than in this instant. She moved to stand next to her instead, her hand barely brushing with Clarke's but still there.
“I've seen how your mother looks at me. No matter our victories, she thinks we're too young to lead. What would the others have thought of you? Would you have had any say, and not just among the friends you saved?”
“I'm not even sure they don't hate me.”
“Then you would have been of no use there. And you needed the time before you could go back. You're the one who's fixing their mistakes, Clarke!”
Clarke did not have time to answer, as they were interrupted by Costia. Sensing something was wrong, she lightly put a hand on Clarke's shoulder for comfort, even as she was seemingly all business, addressing Lexa: “Octavia's arrived. She was sent by Abby, we still have no news of an official envoy or anything...”
“Good, I will see her directly.”
Clarke, of course, followed her, not giving time to Costia to ask her what happened. She had to know what the situation was, she had to see Octavia... even though the girl would probably be mad at her, too. And most of all, she needed to regain a semblance of dignity, and talking to Costia, with her neverending kindness, might just shatter what was left of her countenance.
Once they got past Octavia's anger (turned on Bellamy and the rest, contrary to Clarke's expectations. She hadn't been aware, of course, that Lincoln and the others were imprisoned like enemies), they had a closed quarters meeting – only them and Indra – to discuss the possible solutions that would not, of course, make the whole skaikru hate them, as Lexa's objective, unlike others', wasn't genocide. When a plan that convinced them all had been settled on, Octavia went back to her people. Although she clearly refused to consider her people anymore, and this time was not even defending her brother, who she'd refused to see. After all she'd been through, she knew full well what Sky people were really capable of, and this was far from surprising her, although that did not reduce her anger. That, on the whole, seemed to put her on Indra's good side again. Clarke suspected the older warrior only ever dismissed Octavia as her second so she could help her brother and her friends, which she needed to live with herself.
Followed a day of pacing for Clarke, which was not without reminding Lexa of that time they were in her tent and Clarke was so anxious about the upcoming battle. But this time they were facing her own people, instead of defending them, and there was no telling what Clarke was thinking, and there was no calming her. Even when Costia made her sit down and eat and drink something.
But eventually, Octavia came back with an agreement: Abby had convinced the others that having the Coalition army stand in front of their camp again, with no ultimatum this time, would be their ruin. They did not want to leave the area, where they had comfortably settled in the past few months. And they may still be angry at the Grounders, but the Ice Queen was dead, they were granted revenge; they had no excuse for what had happened once faced with the Grounders' integrity. If they did not trust them yet, they had no other way than to comply. And so, it was agreed that the prisoners would be exchanged for the Grounders that were still at the Ark, with the simple condition that Pike would stay in the custody of the Commander while they set up a trial that duly accounts for his attempted mass murder, and the Arkers would have to elect a new Chancellor and join the Coalition again. It was all good on the paper, but having dealt with the Azgeda, they all knew very well that coercing them into an alliance would bring its own troubles. But that was a problem for another day. For now, they could all relax for a short time, enjoy each other's company with relatively little pressure, and wait to execute the next step of what was, possibly, the road to peace.