Chapter 4
They had left Polis at nightfall, riding for hours before setting up a temporary camp. Clarke had ridden alongside Ryder, just behind Lexa and one of her generals who Clarke still didn’t know the name of. Ryder hadn’t spoken a word the whole time they had been riding, nor had Clarke attempted to strike up a conversation with him. Once they had set up the camp for the night, Clarke sat against a tree at the edge of the clearing they were using for the camp, she was looking up at the stars which she could see beyond the tops of the trees.
She had spent hours on the Ark looking out of the small window that her cell in the Sky Box had, wondering what life was like on Earth. It was nothing like she imagined it would be, yet at the same time, it was so much more. She could never imagine all the lives she would have to take to survive. Though Clarke knew at this point she wasn’t even surviving. She was existing, and she was barely doing that.
x-x-x
From where she was standing, in front of her tent, Lexa could see Clarke looking up at the stars. She had thought a few times about how the ground must have been a massive change for the Sky People. Back before the fall of the mountain, Clarke had told her about how things worked on the Ark, how they grew food, where their water came from, the fact that the oxygen had to be recycled. She had also told her the stories that her people had, about the Ark once being 13 separate stations, 12 of them coming together to form the Ark that Clarke was born on, the other being blown out of the sky. Lexa had failed to understand how, when they believe they were the only humans left alive, why they would needlessly waste lives by destroying a station. It would have made more sense to find some way to all survive together. It also reminded her, in part, of her own battles to unite the 12 clans.
Many lives had been lost in Lexa’s attempt to get everyone living together peacefully, more lives than the Commander could even begin to count. At first, every loss of life hit Lexa hard, but through it all she had Anya reminding her that the end result would be better for everyone. From the stories that Lexa had been told by her own people, stories that had been passed down through the years, the fighting had started as soon as people left the safety of the bunkers. Bunkers which Lexa’s people had not returned to in many years.
When Lexa had become Heda, there was a kind of truce amongst the Trikru and the Boat People, they would trade and people were free to come and go between the two. Lexa had often wondered if that could happen between two clans, why not the rest. That is how the idea of there being a coalition was born in her mind. She had known it wouldn’t be easy, change never is, but she knew that it really would be the best thing for everyone in the end. And though they still had their problems, and not everybody would ever agree to everything, maintaining the peace between the clans had been something that Lexa had become pretty good at. She only hoped that would continue if and when the Sky People joined the coalition.
The addition of the Sky People to the coalition wasn’t an idea that had come into her head recently, it had been something she had been thinking about in one way or another since the start of the short-lived truce between them. She had been faced with a choice that day, work with them or destroy them. Knowing what Clarke was prepared to do for her people had made that decision easier for Lexa, though a very small part of her realized that the other choice would have been easier in the long run. In the days after the fall of the mountain, one or two of the other clan leaders had pushed Lexa to declare war on the Sky People. The Commander herself knew that was partly due to fear. Clarke had done something that others before her had failed to do, she had defeated the Mountain Men, she had rid the territory of it’s biggest enemy. They also feared what the Sky People had found in the mountain, the technology and weaponry they had discovered. Deep down Lexa knew, even with her actions that night, in the days following the fall of the mountain the Sky People were not a threat. If they became one in the time that followed, Lexa told the other clan leaders that she would deal with it personally.
Now, as she stood outside her tent, watching her warriors prepare the kill for the meal, she was risking her own people’s lives to save the Sky People. During the ride from Polis she had questioned why she was doing it. Was it simply to save them or was there more to it? Was she searching for her own redemption? Was she hoping that her actions would lead Clarke to forgive her for what she had done? She knew that if she was searching for redemption it would take more than simply saving the Sky People from themselves. Lexa could probably repopulate Polis with the lives that she had taken since she became Heda. There was no redemption for that. She also knew, no matter how much she was questioning her own motives for agreeing to send help, it would benefit her people. No matter why she had personally made the decision, it was the best thing for her people. Allowing one part of the Sky People to survive, the part who currently hated the Grounders, would mean all-out war for Lexa’s people. She would stand to be blamed for their actions, her decision to leave them that night on the mountain would come back to haunt her. Though in some ways she knew that had already happened.
x-x-x
Clarke knew, though her attention was focused on the stars, Lexa was looking at her. She always knew. It used to make her uncomfortable, it made her question every action she made, now she was used to it. It used to bother her that Lexa could read her like a book, it was like the Commander could look at her and know all her deepest darkest secrets. But she knew that Lexa would never judge her for what she had done. Clarke couldn’t help but wonder if that would still stand true when all this was over.
While she was thinking, Lexa’s voice kept running around in her head ‘the duty to protect my people comes first’. In the brief time that she had known Lexa, because even though they had been through so much, the timeframe wasn’t long, the Commander had taught Clarke a lot about what it meant to lead her people. Many of those lessons the blonde didn’t even realize she was being taught until the time arouse to need it. The lesson that Clarke had learnt from Lexa’s betrayal was one she was currently using. Her people come first. Whatever the cost to her personally, the price was worth paying to save her people. As she glanced over at Lexa, who promptly looked away, Clarke found herself fighting with the tiny bit of doubt which was growing in her mind. When does something become too high a price to pay?
A crunch of a tree branch cleared Clarke’s mind of all her thoughts as Ryder walked over to her. He didn’t say a word as he held out a metal plate of food for her. Clarke nodded a little as she took the plate from him.
“Did you tell her?” Clarke asked as he turned to walk away.
“Did I tell her what?” he asked in reply, turning back and walking back over to where the blonde was sitting.
“About the chest in the room, did you tell her?” Clarke said.
“No, I didn’t tell her,” Ryder replied, sitting on the ground not far from where Clarke was leaning against the tree, “I could not decide how to word it. How would you tell Heda that someone she cares about broke open a chest of her lost loves last belongs, the only part of Costia that she still has?”
“I didn’t know what it was…” Clarke said, looking down at the plate of food in front of her, “if I did…”
“I left instructions for a new lock to be placed on the chest while we are away from Polis,” he said as he stood up, “if you are lucky she will not know.”
“Thank you…” the blonde replied.
“I did not do it for you.” He said as he walked back to the fire.
“Yep,” Clarke mumbled to herself as she took a bite of the meat from the plate, “definitely hates me.”
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
After she had eaten her food, Lexa had returned to her tent after she had informed her warriors that they would be riding the entire distance to Tondc the following day. She wanted to get there around the same time her units reached Camp Jaha. Indra knew that she would be in Tondc, and had said she would send a messenger to keep Lexa up to date. There was still planning to do, but it could be done once they reached the village. As usual it hadn’t taken Lexa long to fall asleep, she had long since become used to the ghosts she could not get rid of. The nightmares had stopped keeping her awake long ago. There were still times when she would awaken through the night, but it was something she was used to.
While she was sleeping she heard muffled moans, someone begging for someone to stop, the word no repeated time and time again. As she opened her eyes she realized that the sounds were not from a dream she was having. Reaching under her pillow she picked up her dagger, climbing out of bed she put on her boots and grabbed her coat from the back of a chair as she walked to the entrance of her tent. Cautiously she left her tent, looking around she could see that the fire had long since started to go out. The night sounds from the forest flooded around her as she tried to figure out where the noises were coming from. Looking over to Clarke’s tent she saw Ryder standing just outside it. He had obviously been woken by the same sounds and had gone to investigate.
“I believe she is having nightmares, Heda.” He said as he saw Lexa.
“That would be the logical conclusion,” Lexa said with a sigh, her brow furrowed a little as she recalled Clarke telling her that she couldn’t get the nightmares to stop, “can you prepare a tea for her, the one Nyko made for me when I had trouble sleeping?”
“Sha, Heda.” He said with a small nod, returning to his own tent to prepare the tea.
Lexa took a deep breath, letting it out slowly she made her way into Clarke’s tent. The images of what had happened the last time she had startled Clarke were clear in her mind as she walked over to the bed. The blonde was tossing and turning, her hair sticking to her face in places where she had been sweating.
“No…” Clarke mumbled, “no I won’t do it…”
Lexa gently sat down on Clarke’s bed, near the blonde girl’s legs. It hurt her in places she had long since forgotten to see Clarke in such turmoil. It hurt her to think that she was partly to blame for that.
“You can’t…” Clarke muttered, “no… stop.”
“Clarke…” Lexa said, softly putting her hand on Clarke’s leg over the furs on the bed.
The blonde kicked her leg a little, causing Lexa to move her hand.
“Clarke.” She tried again, a little louder this time.
“No…” the blonde said, sitting bolt up-right on the bed, her breathing erratic as she looked at Lexa.
“It was a nightmare,” Lexa said, placing her hand on Clarke’s arm, “it’s okay, you’re safe.”
They both sat there in silence as Clarke’s breathing returned to normal.
“I’m sorry…” Clarke said, moving herself back up the bed away from Lexa.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Clarke.” Lexa replied softly, “We cannot control what we see in our dreams.”
“I meant I was sorry for waking you up.” The blonde said pulling her legs to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees.
“I am a light sleeper.” Lexa said with a small smile, “would you like to talk about it, I find that it sometimes helps.”
“No…” Clarke replied, shaking her head a little.
Lexa nodded, indicating that she wouldn’t push Clarke to talk about it if she wasn’t ready. Silence once again fell over them as Lexa watched the mixed emotions flash across the blonde’s face, it was like she was fighting an internal battle.
“I don’t even really remember it…” Clarke said out of nowhere, “I get flashes but nothing solid…”
A knock on the wooden support near the door caused Clarke to jump.
“It’s only Ryder,” Lexa explained as she stood up, “I asked him to make you a tea to help you sleep…”
Clarke watched as Lexa walked to the entrance of the tent, opened it and took a cup from Ryder. They exchanged a few words which Clarke couldn’t hear before Ryder walked away and Lexa brought the tea back over to her. As Lexa sat back down on the bed she held the cup out to Clarke who just looked cautiously at it.
“It will not harm you, Clarke,” Lexa said with a small smile, “it is what Nyko prepares for me when I cannot sleep. It just helps your mind and body to relax, nothing more.”
When Clarke didn’t take the cup from her Lexa nodded a little and put it on the floor near the bed.
“It is there if you change your mind.” She said.
“Do you ever have those dreams where it’s like it’s you but it’s not…” Clarke said, “like you can see everything, hear everything… feel everything, but it’s like it’s not happening to you, even though it is?”
“Sometimes,” Lexa replied with a small nod, “they usually follow traumatic events.”
“My whole life has been a traumatic event.” Clarke said with a short laugh, shaking her head a little, “the dreams always start the same, I’m hugging Bellamy and I’m walking away from the camp… I just keep walking and walking for days…”
“What happened after you left the camp, where did you go?” Lexa asked as she turned a little so she could look at Clarke without having to turn her head.
“I came across a little outpost, I wouldn’t even call it a village, it was a few huts,” Clarke said with a sigh, “I met this woman, she never did tell me her name, she let me into her home, gave me something to eat, somewhere to clean up… I was a mess. She didn’t ask me who I was, she just helped me… I stayed there for a couple of days…”
Lexa listened as Clarke talked, trying to work out where the outpost would have been.
“As I was leaving she told me about this trading post,” Clarke continued, “somewhere I could probably find someone who would let me work for food and a roof over my head. Neither of which I really wanted, I just wanted to disappear… she also told me that she knew exactly who I was, and what I had done. Told me that someone like me would stand out a mile, if I wanted to blend in and not draw attention I should change my hair colour… don’t really get a lot of Grounders with blonde hair like mine…”
Lexa smiled and nodded a little, it was true, blonde hair as bright as Clarke’s was hard to find on the ground.
“She knew exactly who I was, the whole time I was there, and she allowed me in her home,” Clarke said, furrowing her brow a little, “she wasn’t afraid of me, she just… Anyway, a few days later I came across this trading post she had been talking about. It didn’t take long for me to find something to do... People are always looking for a healer, right… one night I was in the tavern there, drinking everything I had made that day, like I usually did, it was the only way for me to forget… this girl walked over to me, Niylah her name was, she told me that she knew who I was, that people were looking for me…”
“Like I said, everyone was looking for you, Clarke.” Lexa said, as the blonde looked up at her, “Everyone.”
“She was Azgeda…” Clarke said, reaching down to the side of the bed and picking up the tea, gaining a small smile from Lexa as she did so, “I’d seen her around while I’d been at the trading post, she’d always been really helpful and nice to me. She explained that the Azgeda were looking for me, Nia wanted to talk to me about something…”
“That is how you ended up with the Azgeda?” Lexa asked.
“No…” the blonde said, shaking her head a little as she started to drink the tea, “one night, a few days later, Niylah and I were… at my place… it was just a room, with a bed in it… someone had banged on the door and said the Azgeda were there. We ran… But they were everywhere. We ended up under the trading post, maintenance tunnels…”
Lexa watched as Clarke started to shake her head a little as she spoke, her eyes were fixed on the tent next to her bed.
“But they were waiting when we got out of the other side,” Clarke continued, “I didn’t see Niylah again after that, I… don’t know what happened to her. All she did was try to help, and… everything’s a little fuzzy after that…”
“You cared about her…” Lexa said.
“I don’t know…” Clarke said with a small shrug, “maybe I did… or maybe I just wanted some kind of… I don’t know, human affection… someone to not care who I was, what I’d done…”
“That counts for two, possibly three weeks,” Lexa replied, “You were gone for three months, Clarke…”
“Time moves differently when you’re out there on your own…” the blonde said, “I guess I was with the Azgeda for the rest of the time. I remember the day I met Ontari, she came into the room where I was to give me something to eat. I remember a healer coming in at one point… I must have hurt myself or something, I don’t remember…”
Lexa furrowed her brow as she looked at Clarke.
“Roll up your sleeves.” Lexa said.
“What?” Clarke asked, “Why?”
“Please…” the brunette replied.
Clarke handed Lexa the cup which was now nearly empty and rolled up her sleeves. Up the inside of Clarke’s arms were knife marks, wounds that had been cauterized using a heated blade. Lexa slowly reached out, taking the back of Clarke’s hand in hers as she looked at the wounds.
“Do you have more of these?” she asked, her eyes flicking up to Clarke’s before she looked back at the blonde’s arm.
“I don’t even remember how they got there…” Clarke said quietly, “guess I was… am a little more screwed up than I thought…”
“These are not self-inflicted, Clarke,” Lexa replied, shaking her head a little, “a self-inflicted wound tends to move from the outside in, you pull the blade towards your body rather than dragging it away. The scars on your left arm are not even fully healed yet, which means they were deeper. You favour your left hand, that means the wounds to the right arm would have been deeper if they were self-inflicted. You did not do this to yourself.”
“You’re saying I let someone do this to me?” Clarke asked, looking down at her arms.
“I am saying that you may not have had a choice…” Lexa said, clenching her jaw a little.
Lexa’s eyes travelled up Clarke’s arm, stopping at her elbow. Running her finger over the small marks she found in the soft skin on the inside of Clarke’s arm she closed her eyes.
“What?” Clarke asked, fighting the yawn that was now threatening to escape her.
“Nothing,” Lexa said shaking her head a little as she moved to stand up, “we can talk about this more in the morning.”
“I don’t want to sleep…” Clarke said as she lay back down on the bed.
“Is that a fact?” Lexa asked, a small smile playing on her lips as she saw that Clarke’s eyes were already closing.
The blonde nodded a hummed a little.
“Good night, Clarke.” Lexa said quietly as she walked from the tent.
When Lexa left the tent she saw Ryder sitting near a small fire, he looked over at her, concern on his face as he saw her jaw clench.
“What is it?” he asked, causing her to look at him.
“You did not have to stay awake.” She replied, walking over to where he was sitting.
“I do not need much sleep,” he said with a small smile as Lexa sat down, “what is troubling you?”
“I believe she has been conditioned…” Lexa said, fixing her eyes on the fire, “she has knife wounds on her arms, to an untrained eye they would appear to be self-inflicted, which is what Clarke herself believed. The wounds move from the inside of the arm, out, not from the outside of the arm in towards the body. They were not sutured closed, which any healer would normally do as the wounds themselves wouldn’t have been life threatening, they were cauterized.”
“She was tortured…” he said quietly.
“There are also puncture marks on the inside of her elbows.” Lexa said with a nod, “she does not remember how the wounds were made on her arms, she remembers a healer treating her when she hurt herself, but she does not remember how she hurt herself. Nothing else makes sense to me.”
“Perhaps that is what you’re supposed to think.” He said causing her to look up at him, “if you want to make someone believe that they can trust you, even when every fiber of their being is telling them not to, what would you do?”
“Make them believe that the choices you are making are not your own…” Lexa replied with a sigh.
“She has been gone for three months, Heda,” he said, “her mind has been damaged, she is broken, you know that. A broken mind is easily manipulated. She may believe that what she is doing is right, that it is the only thing she can do. It would not be the first time that Nia has attempted to use your… someone you care for, against you.”
“My feelings,” Lexa said shaking her head a little, “that’s what you meant.”
“She may be a tool in this game, or she may be one of the players.” Ryder replied, “Until you know which, I suggest moving with caution.”
Lexa nodded a little as she watched the fire burning, the flames flicking up and disappearing into the darkness.