Chapter Text
After Lexa’s official memorial, when the sun is low in the sky and darkness is beginning to seep in, the remaining quintet retreats into the depths of the woods surrounding Polis. It is, after all, the place Lexa loved most. Though not much for superstition, Lena swears she can feel the Commander still. It is as though she follows them, only footfalls behind.
A stash of aged alcohol that Lexa would sip on the hardest of nights is uncovered, and sobriety soon becomes a thing of the light. It doesn’t take much to become intoxicated, especially not for the native Grounders; rarely is more than one serving of alcohol had at one time. Within two servings, Kara, Alex, Lena, and Maggie are thoroughly inebriated. Clarke holds her own a for a bit longer, slightly more capable of tolerating the poison, but is soon as gone as the rest of them.
The memories of the night are blurred by the time Lena wakes the next morning, safe in bed beside Kara. Despite being unable to recall much, the feeling that Lexa has not left them still remains. She decides then and there that spirits do exist, and the Commander’s will be by their side until it is time to join her.
They never really heal. Or at least, Kara doesn’t. The loss of her Earth parents and her Commander, the one who gave her purpose, in a matter of mere days is enough to put her into a depression that lasts another few days. It is so deep that not even Lena’s or Alex’s love can rouse her from it. Despite all of the responsibilities and tasks to complete in the absence of a Commander, she does not eat, drink, or move for days on end.
She isn’t sure how much more she can handle, but as always, Rao and every other God that exists puts that limit to the test.
It actually astounds Kara how much happens in the 42 days following Lexa’s death. Everything she could possibly imagine, things she thought only happened in films and stories, seems to come to be. She wonders sometimes if her mind is playing tricks on her, unable to cope with the trauma it has endured. Still, she plays along whether it is real or not.
It is day 43. The biggest threat of all, one that has loomed over their heads since day 7, is upon them. In Trigedasleng, it is called Praimfaya. In English, it is a massive wave of fire that will wipe out the entire planet for the second time in a century. Radiation levels are rising to almost unbearable levels, and those not safely far away from the surface of Earth will be dead within hours.
Of course, that leaves just two options for humanity’s survival. They must live far below the Earth’s surface, or far above it. In space.
Those left on Earth in these final hours have chosen their final destinations for the next few years, a fact that Kara can’t even wrap her head around. There are 1,200 people that will reside in a bunker found just days before. It will be cramped, and Kara is afraid of what tensions may rise, but the people that will stay there are in good hands.
“Clarke, I don’t know if I can do this.”
Kara hears Octavia’s voice over the radio across the room. Clarke has been on the radio for the past twenty minutes, saying goodbye to her mother, then Marcus, and now Octavia. The radiation will rise to a level at which the radio won’t function soon; these are the last words they will speak to each other for five years.
“If anyone in that bunker is ready to lead, it’s you,” Clarke reassures. She runs her thumb across the side of the speaker, almost as if she’s trying to comfort the woman on the other end. “Not even Kane could do better.”
Octavia sniffles, but says nothing. The static is beginning to rise, and Kara knows there’s not much time. She looks out the glass windows onto the floor below them, where everyone else is hurriedly trying to prepare the rocket they’re about to launch. The giant countdown timer on the wall is red and glaring. T-minus 60 minutes, and the Earth becomes a giant ball of flame.
“Do you have the headpiece?” Clarke asks quietly. Kara raises an eyebrow, turning her head back to Clarke.
“I don’t...I can’t, she…”
“Would want you to,” Clarke finishes, gently cutting Octavia’s protests short. “You’ve earned this.”
Kara realizes with a freight train to the chest that they’re talking about Lexa’s headpiece, the little gear-like emblem which she wore between her eyes. The memory of the Commander makes it hard to breathe for a moment, and she hears her own breath shudder as she inhales. Clarke must hear it, too; her eyes flit up for a moment, but only just.
After a few more beats of silence on Octavia’s end, the new leader speaks.
“I hope I’ll make her proud,” she says quietly. “Her and Bell both.”
The mention of Bellamy brings tears to Clarke’s eyes, and her resolve starts to crumple. Her face contorts and she allows herself a moment to cry. It is a moment and nothing more, for she takes a deep breath and pulls her composure back as soon as possible. It is not so easy for Kara, however; she can’t seem to stop the tears that have begun to slip down her cheeks. Though her powers have returned, she still feels completely and utterly powerless.
“You will, Octavia,” Clarke promises. “You will.”
“See you in five years,” Octavia replies meekly. Before Clarke has a chance to respond, the radio cuts out.
This time, Clarke’s composure doesn’t crack. She places the speaker back onto the radio, the click echoing in the small room as it settles into place.
“Thank you for staying here with me, I didn’t want to do that alone,” she admits, standing as she speaks to Kara. Kara nods.
“Now is not the time for anyone to be alone,” she replies, not even bothering to wipe the tears from her cheeks. There’s no point in hiding anymore, no point in pretending to be strong and pretending that this doesn’t hurt. The world is ending. What is there left to lose?
In urgent silence, the two of them hurry downstairs where chaos surrounds them the second they reach the floor.
“Where’s Monty and Lena?” Kara asks, realizing that the shaggy haired boy she recently met is nowhere to be seen, and neither is her lover. She feels panic rising in her chest at Lena’s absence.
“They went to go get the oxygen scrubber for the ship,” Alex says, rushing over to her. “They’ll be back soon, I promise. Lena insisted. She wouldn’t let me go, and Monty wouldn’t let Maggie go without me.”
The panic rises even further as she realizes that Lena is out there in a world about to burst into flames. She wants to scream, to ask why no one thought to send her out instead, but she doesn’t get a chance to. Something bursts in the ship, sending sparks flying everywhere and Raven jolting backwards. Everyone sprints to her side immediately.
“Perfect!” she yells, enraged. She throws down her tools and they clatter with a loud bang of metal on metal, making Kara flinch. Raven hangs her head in her hands, breathing hard but otherwise completely still.
“What happened?” Maggie asks, her expression dripping with concern.
“We’re pushing this too fast,” Raven says, her words muffled. She sits up, wiping the sweat off her face and pushing her hair back. “The communications system is down. The Ark ring is freakin’ powered by the comms system.”
Kara’s heart sinks to the floor. “So we have no power when we get up there. No oxygen.”
“Yeah,” Raven spits back. “So we’re stuck here.”
“No,” Clarke says immediately, pulling herself into the ship with Raven. “Absolutely not. You do not get to give up right now, Raven Reyes.”
“What is there to do, Clarke? I didn’t know how to do all this shit unless I had ALIE in my brain! I don’t know how to do any of this without her!” Raven shouts. Her eyes are dark and sunken; she is nearly at the end of her rope, a feeling Kara is becoming all too familiar with.
Clarke seems unfazed by Raven’s anger. She counters back immediately, her voice softer and calmer than before. “You were saving our lives long before you had her in your brain. You are more than smart enough on your own. All you have to do is think.”
Raven almost growls in frustration, but seems to be thinking anyway. Her eyes dart across the control panel of the ship, as though searching for some answer. Finally, she gets one.
“ALIE was transmitting herself to the Ark ring through satellite towers. So we need to turn on the ring with a satellite tower.”
Kara’s emotions are conflicting. Half of her is excited and grateful that there’s an answer to their problems, but she feels that disintegrate when she realizes what that means. Yet another person has to go out into the hell that is the outside of the lab. Yet another person’s life becomes even more at risk than it already is. Kara begins to wonder whether they’re going to make it after all, but cuts the thought off before it can grow into anything more.
Clarke is jumping out of the ship and heading toward the suits before anyone else can claim the job.
“Nope, absolutely not,” Kara says, heading for the suits as well. There’s just enough left for the rest of them. “No way in hell are you going out there alone.”
Wordlessly, Maggie, Alex, and Raven follow. Minutes later, they’re in full radation-protective gear.
“Let’s move,” Alex says, and they head for the door.
Not long after they leave the lab, they run into Lena, and she’s got the oxygen scrubber they need. Clarke feels a rush of relief to see her alive and unharmed. She searches for Monty, figuring he’s a few paces behind for some reason, but she sees nothing. Monty is nowhere to be found.
When they meet up with Lena, the estranged princess is practically hysterical. She falls into Kara’s arms almost instantly, and the superhuman woman sets the heavy scrubber down with one arm next to her. Though the suits prevent them from hugging very tightly, Kara still tries to hold Lena as she trembles and attempts to speak from within her helmet.
“Monty, he- he took off his gloves to get the scrubber,” she says. “He passed out, and I couldn’t get to him, and I knew I had to get this back...I left him there. God, I left him there!”
She’s almost hyperventilating, now, and Clarke puts her hands on Lena’s shoulders, looking her square in the eye.
“It’s okay, you did what you had to. We’re gonna find him, okay? We’re gonna find him. I promise,” Clarke promises, her eyes darting between Lena’s. The raven haired woman can’t seem to comprehend; all Clarke can see is pure terror staring back.
She’s barking orders before she even has a chance to think about them, realizing that time is of the essence and they’re running frighteningly low on it.
“Raven, Kara, and Lena, get the scrubber back to the ship and fix the damn thing, we have to leave as soon as the ring is up and running. Alex, Maggie, go find Monty and get him back to the lab. If we can treat his burns, do it. I’ll go to the satellite and turn on the ring,” she says. She doesn’t know why she decides that she will go it alone, but it seems right. She refuses to separate any of the couples; she would not wish that pain on anyone. She isn’t sure she could live with herself if another pair become just half.
“You can’t go alone, Clarke!” Raven urges, but it is halfhearted. Clarke appreciates that she tries, but the brunette knows the truth as well as anyone. It is the only way.
“It’s okay, Raven,” Clarke responds through the lump in her throat. “It’s okay.”
Raven opens her mouth to speak, eyes desperate and hopeful, but nothing comes out. She knows. There’s nothing more to do now; they have to go, and Clarke has to fix the ring alone.
“I’ll see you soon, Clarke,” the mechanic says, but it comes out as more of a question than anything.
“I’ll see you soon,” Clarke replies. She hates the way her vision is beginning to blur, because she can’t make out the details of anything. Her last memory of Kara, Lena, and Raven is three blurry silhouettes running off to the ship.
“May we meet again,” Clarke whispers to herself, blinking as fast as she can to see clearly once more.
The moment of grief is cut off quickly, for a load roar catches her attention. She turns, and her breath catches in her throat at what she sees. Far off in the distance, easily miles and miles away, Praimfaya is rising. She is monstrous and angry, a menacing red and orange wave on the horizon that climbs closer and closer. It is as if the hourglass is reaching its end, the last bits of sand slipping through to the other side as time runs dry.
Clarke is filled with sudden urgency. She dashes to the satellite tower and throws open the box which she needs to connect to.
“Sat star one,” she whispers, eyes darting back and forth between all the different ports in front of her. One is labelled “Satellite Star One.” She breathes a sigh of relief, her hands shaking as she pushes the plugin into the port.
At first, it seems as though it’s working. The tablet in her hands powers up, and for a moment Clarke believes that they just might make it. That even though their imminent death is roaring toward her as she watches this screen, they just might make it off the ground before it engulfs them in flame.
But then the tablet displays an error message. Dish not aligned.
“No!” Clarke screeches, and it can be described as nothing more than a screech. The sound that leaves her is all but animalistic. This can’t happen. They have come too far, lost too much, worked too hard for this damned dish to not be properly aligned to save their lives.
She tries a few more times to connect, but it is in vain, as the same error message is blared in a monotonous, unfeeling voice from the tablet. It does not realize the end of everything is, quite literally, on the horizon.
Clarke looks up. The tower before her is tall and frightening, and a fall from it would be certain death. However, it seems as though she has but one option. If the dish isn’t aligned right now, she will have to align it herself.
She has to climb.
She goes to grab the first rung of the tower, but the timer on her wrist catches her eye. She watches the clock hit ten minutes, then keep going down.
Clarke realizes with a heavy pang in her heart that she won’t make it back in time. Or, rather, that it’s extremely unlikely; the time it will take to climb, fix the satelitte, and climb down alone may very well take every second of the nine minutes she has left.
She supposes she can spare a minute. The radio in her pocket is almost surely dead, but still, she pulls it out.
“If you can hear me,” she begins, her voice tremulous, “don’t wait.”
Then, she climbs.
By the time she reaches the top of the tower, every muscle in her body aches. The wave on the horizon is terrifyingly close, and it’s increasingly more difficult to block out the roar of the flames. The heat is nearly unbearable. Sweat drips down her body from every possible pore, leaving her drenched and dehydrated.
She wonders for a moment if this is hell after all.
The minutes continue to count down. The tower is shaking furiously, struggling to remain steady with extra weight at the top of its thin frame. Clarke hurriedly plugs into the ports at the top of the tower, quickly finding the one labeled Satellite Star One once again. The same error message blares from the tablet, but she does not react to it this time. Instead, she climbs even further. She is standing on the very tip of the tower, and she swears she has never been so high up. The thought almost amuses her; she’s been in space, but this feels like she’s looking down from the heavens.
She reaches for the dish, realizing she’s going to have to move it herself. She pulls on it with one arm, needing the other for stability, but it doesn’t budge. The tower is shaking even harder now, as though it too is panicking as the death wave approaches. Clarke’s muscles scream in agony, nothing more than useless jelly. She doesn’t have the strength to move the dish alone, but there’s no one else. By now, Raven and the rest of them are already in space, waiting for a reprieve that will never come. They will die there of suffocation, all because Clarke is too weak to move the damned dish.
“Ogeda!”
No. Impossible.
Clarke turns her head, and she nearly loses her grip when she registers what’s across from her. There, on the other side of the tower, clinging to dear life wearing nothing but tattered chest binders and undershorts, is Lexa.
She really must be hallucinating. But if hallucinating Lexa is going to give her the strength she needs to move the dish, she supposes it’s not the worst thing in the world. It will be a nice last memory.
Lexa grabs onto one side of the dish, and Clarke grabs onto the other. There is a renewed strength in her, and when Lexa nods her head, they pull.
It takes three tries, but finally, the tablet speaks.
“Dish aligned.”
“YES!” Clarke shouts, still breathing heavily. Lexa grins ear to ear. Her tangled and matted hair is blowing everywhere, covering her bruised and battered face. She looks as weak and destroyed as Clarke has ever seen her, with cuts and bruises and the beginnings of radiation burns covering every inch of visible skin, but that smile… that smile has never been so strong.
A saddening thought crosses Clarke’s mind, and it makes the smile on her own face fall suddenly. Her throat is already burning from the radiation seeping into the suit, but it burns even more as she fights against the lump that rises in it.
Lexa, however, seems unfazed. As mere seconds passes, the burns on her body only deepen, and she’s starting to cough now. The radiation has made its way into her lungs. Yet, when she turns and looks at Clarke directly in the eyes for the first time in 43 days, it’s as though everything is as peaceful as that quiet moment in her room weeks ago.
“Shouldn’t we try to get somewhere safe?” Clarke asks over the roar of the death wave, but Lexa shakes her head. Instead, she reaches out her hand. When Clarke takes it, they both groan against the pain of touching raw burns, but don’t dare to let go. Not again. Til death do them part.
“I don’t want to fight anymore,” Lexa shouts back, the action sending her into another coughing fit. “I’m done. Ai gonplei ste odon.”
Clarke wonders for a moment why her mind is imagining allowing Lexa to die again, but she tries to ignore the thought. Lexa is here, even if she isn’t real, and that’s enough for her. At least she isn’t alone in her final moments.
“Ai gonplei ste odon,” Clarke replies in confirmation. She grips Lexa’s hand tighter, tears springing to her eyes from the burning it causes, and allows her eyes to fall shut.
Her final moment of peace is interrupted by an unexpected yet familiar face rushing toward them, wearing what appears to be a spacesuit. The figure wraps one arm around Clarke and the other around Lexa, effectively swooping them off of the tower and landing on the ground. The death wave is sixty seconds away, at the most.
Kara tears the spacesuit off of her body and thrusts it urgently toward Lexa. Clarke’s mind is too weak to process any of this, or why she’s imagining it, so she stops trying. She simply watches as Kara shouts at Lexa to put the damn suit on, along with a few other Trigedasleng expletives and swearing upon Rao. Lexa immediately protests, watching with Clarke as Kara’s skin begins to burn from the radiation, but Kara is having none of it. She practically forces Lexa into the suit as she shakily helps the woman into it, making sure it is secure.
The second the helmet clicks, Kara is grabbing them both and soaring upward, leaving the wave of fire roaring below them. It takes only seconds before it engulfs the very place which they were standing, sending the tower crashing to the ground. Clarke prays that it stood long enough to power up the Ark.
All at once, Clarke is seeing stars.
Literal stars. In seconds, they’ve passed through the atmosphere and been thrust into space. There’s barely any oxygen left in Clarke and Lexa’s suits, and they immediately start gasping for air. Kara appears to pass out the second they reach space. Her grip slackens, but the hold she had on them while they were still on Earth was strong enough that Clarke and Lexa float loosely by her side still.
Clarke glances over at Lexa, who is trying hard not to audibly gasp for air. Her eyes are bloodshot and her lips are turning blue. They have only minutes left.
Neither of them can speak. They simply stay there, staring only at each other and grabbing onto Kara so they don’t drift away.
As tightly as they hold, Clarke can’t fight the blackness anymore. She is dizzy and everything around her is fading. She can’t feel her fingers or her toes. Oddly enough, she can’t feel her nose, either. The darkness seeps into her until she can’t feel or see anything.
She hears her last breath. Ai gonplei ste odon.
“KARA JOKEN DANVERS!”
Lexa wakes to the sound of Lena screaming at the top of her lungs. She doesn’t open her eyes at first; the artificial light above her is already too bright on her eyelids. She takes a few slow, deep breaths, allowing herself to feel the air rushing into her lungs after what felt like an eternity of nothingness. The pain of her burns still remains, but something has lessened it somehow. She does not know what, yet, but she is grateful.
“Lena, will you just-”
“That was a suicide mission! Do you realize that? You could have been killed! And you didn’t even tell me, you just-”
“Saved my life.”
The words are weak and scratchy, and they barely sound like her voice at all, but it is her voice. She didn’t realize she could make any sound at all, so she is pleased to find that she can.
Lexa blinks against the fluorescent light bearing down on her. As her eyes adjust, she figures that they must be in some sort of medical area. There’s something in her forearm that’s attached to a bag of liquid, what she can only presume to be medicine. She is covered in bandages; hardly a centimeter of her skin is visible. These bandages are white and soft, nothing like the tan cloths they used on the ground.
A lightly burnt Kara and furious Lena turn toward her immediately, quickly followed by the rest of the people in the room; a burnt and battered Clarke, also covered in bandages but still somehow standing, an exhausted looking Raven, a boy she believes to be named Monty, and Alex and Maggie, both looking worn down.
Lexa pushes herself into a sitting position as gently as she can, then attempts standing. She nearly falls, but before anyone can rush to help her, she finds her balance. She holds onto the cool, shining metal rod that’s holding her medicine, then turns to face the others in the room.
“Hi,” she rasps, smiling even though it hurts.
Clarke, somehow, is the first person over to her, even though Kara and Lena are just feet away. They embrace instantly, ignoring the agony it causes to press against the still raw wounds. They can only manage a few seconds, however, and instead delicately kiss each other’s lips. The closeness will have to wait until after they heal a bit, and Lexa doesn’t mind. She’s got years; there’s nothing to fear anymore.
“Lexa, forgive me, I never wanted to insinuate that-” Lena begins, hurriedly trying to explain herself. Lexa grins and shakes her head.
“I know you’re grateful that we’re alive. You’re only worried about Kara, I understand.”
Lena smiles gratefully, then turns to Kara. Her smile falters, and she lets out an angry huff, studying the blonde’s face. Lexa watches the angry leave her eyes, however, as she pulls Kara close to her with one arm and cradles her face with the other. She gently presses her lips to Kara’s forehead, and it melts Lexa’s heart to see the Kryptonian’s smile, out of Lena’s view.
“H...how?” Alex asks shakily as everyone slowly approaches her. She and Clarke sit on the bed behind them, while the others crowd around it, still standing. Clarke turns to her, eyes full to the brim with unshed tears, awaiting the same explanation.
“I don’t remember much,” Lexa admits. “One minute I was taking my last breath. The next, I awoke in some sort of bunker beneath the ground. It was highly technological. There was medicine, food, water, and screens everywhere so that I could watch what was happening in the outside world. The only thing I did not have was any new clothes. I tried a few times to escape, but could not. Suddenly, with ten minutes before Praimfaya hit, the doors opened. I got out and came to find you as quickly as I could.”
She adds the last part quickly, turning to Clarke as she does so. Clarke sniffles, tears streaming down her cheeks. She mouths a thank you, and Lexa nods slowly in return.
No one really has anything to say. There’s nothing to say - no sense in dwelling on what was, trying to understand it. The past is gone, and only the future remains.
There’s a digital clock that helps them keep track of the time as if they were still on Earth. They eat slowly, food that is delicious yet still very clearly “space food” as Alex calls it, and talk about nothing in particular. They settle on a few rooms that are closeby, each only mere feet away in case they need each other in the night. They have five years on this ship until it is safe to return to Earth’s surface, but they try not to think about it too much.
The belongings of those who used to live in the rooms still remain, and Alex makes a discovery not too long after they retire to the rooms for the night. As Clarke and Lexa lay in silence on their bed, their wounds redressed and medicine reapplied, there’s a soft knock at the door.
“I found a movie you might like, Clarke,” Alex says, her voice lilting with something that can almost be described as joy. From her place on Lexa’s chest, the brunette can feel Clarke smile.
They all pile into Alex and Maggie’s room, Raven and Monty included, and Monty gets the television up and working. Without letting anyone see the box from which she takes it, Alex pushes a thin, round disc into a machine that’s connected to the screen.
“What is that?” Lexa whispers, feeling slightly ridiculous for not knowing much about technology. She isn’t the only one, however; Lena and Maggie look as perplexed as Lexa does. They watch with intrigue as the screen lights up, an image displayed on it immediately.
“It holds the data for the movie so that you can watch it anywhere that has a machine to read that data,” Clarke whispers back as Monty hits a button a few times, effectively making the sound louder. “It’s called a DVD.”
Lexa nods, turning her attention back to the screen. They all settle against the various pieces of furniture decorating the room; two chairs, a couch, and a bed. The resemblance to her room on Earth makes Lexa feel almost homesick, but she pushes back the feeling when she realizes who she’s with. Home has traveled with her.
They watch a movie about magic. Alex and Clarke say some of the lines before they’re said, or mock the characters. They get excited about certain parts and laugh more than they should at the bits meant to be humorous. No one else in the room understands, but Lexa can’t deny - it’s heartwarming to watch the two of them so happy, like nothing bad has happened.
They fall asleep soon into the second film. The room falls hush and they begin to draw close to each other. The last thing Lexa hears that night is the lilting music from the screen through one ear, and Clarke’s alive and beating heart through the other.