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The nickname never really fades.
Clarke the Sky Princess. Brave Princess. Thanks, Princess.
You don’t really know if you hate it. You don’t really know if it still applies to you, especially after the blood so crudely wiped upon your hands. You don’t really know if you still have the right to wear that upon your chest, since you don’t feel like a princess. You feel like a grounder, been through hell and back. And grounders aren’t princesses—they’re warriors—leaders.
Like Lexa.
Lexa isn’t a princess. She’s far from it. She’s the queen, the most important chess piece of the game. If she falls, everything falls apart. There’s no hope, no chance at this alliance. Commander. Heda. Leader.
You wish that you were like her. Like a leader—not a princess who doesn’t know what to do with the blood in her hands.
Apparently, she doesn’t think the same.
After the battle at Mount Weather, you corner her at her tent, storming in without the guards’ permission. There’s still blood spattered against her armor and she’s limping slightly but she stands tall when she turns to look at you, green eyes fathomless as she waits for you to say the first thing.
And you kiss her. You kiss her like it’s your last chance—you kiss her like you’re about to get floated and she’s the only thing keeping you grounded. You kiss her and she kisses you back, softly with the gentlest pressure against your lips. Her hands are hesitant against your cheeks and God—you want more, more. You want to scream her name, you want her to kiss away the guilt from your shoulders, you want her to make you forget what has happened, what you have done, what this war means for the rest of you.
But she pulls away and her eyes are dark and hazy, unfocused. You lick your lips, wanting to lean forward and she places her hand against your shoulder, stopping you.
“Clarke,” she whispers, “I am not a distraction.”
The words are like a slap. You step back, reeling from your desire. You notice her fingers shaking as she clutches the hilt of her sword. You notice that she does that a lot, especially when she’s nervous. Maybe it’s a tell, maybe it has a backstory—you don’t know.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper and you truly are and she nods, like she truly understands.
You leave that night, your lips still tingling from the gentle way she had kissed you.
.
“Princess,” Bellamy calls after you.
Your shoulders tense at the nickname. It still hurts, since its Finn’s last words for you. You never told anyone about it—you still don’t know how to say his name without remembering the knife against your hand and his blood against your shirt. But after the war, it seems like the nickname has added more weight to your shoulders. You’re nothing more than a princess in the eyes of your people—your mother is the Chancellor, Lexa the Commander, Octavia the second, Bellamy the king. You’re just the princess who fell from the sky.
“Yeah?” you say, when you turn to look at Bellamy. You don’t want him to know how much the nickname hurts.
His eyes scan your face. “Raven’s looking for you,” he says, “Said that she had something to tell you about the remaining weapons at Mount Weather.”
You nod, walking past him. Trying not to remember the grin in his face when he first said, “Brave princess.”
.
Octavia has taken to calling you, “sky princess” whenever you two converse.
It’s not her fault, really. She doesn’t know, doesn’t have the time to think about your emotional state when she’s helping your mom fix the Reapers back into regular men. But you kind of wish that she can see the anguish in your eyes when the words pop out of her mouth.
(Finn whispering “Thanks, princess” to your ear, right before he dies in your arms)
“What’s the commander doing nowadays?” Octavia asks, her voice hushed. She is both terrified and defiant of Lexa and it makes you want to ask why she’s not like that with you.
You’re both in the mess hall, chewing on tough meat and drinking moonshine. She leans back against her chair, staring at the sky. Your eyes follow and your fingers still over your cup. Her home. Your home.
“Rebuilding Ton DC,” you murmur, letting your eyes stray back towards the war paint she has against her cheeks. Indra’s second. You try not to deflate.
Octavia nods, her jaw clenching. She’s still looking at the sky. “Ever wonder what it would’ve been like if we hadn’t been sent to the ground?” she asks and it’s obvious that the moonshine is getting to her.
You’re too tired to come up with a smartass answer so you say, “Who knows.”
Octavia cracks a grin when she turns to you. “Then I wouldn’t be able to call you sky princess,” she says, drowning her drink in one go.
She doesn’t see the way your hands shake when you leave the table.
.
Jasper and Monty are sweet, really.
But they can be major assholes when they feel like it. You should be grateful, really—that they still have time to joke around and laugh, especially after what has happened to their friends.
But you’re not grateful for the extra moonshine kick in your drink, especially when you have a whole day of work tomorrow. Somehow, in the middle of last night’s celebration for the reconstruction of Ton DC, Monty added a few more spike to your drink, which leads to a huge hangover early in the morning. You stumble out of bed, a splitting headache pounding furiously inside your head and you try to grab on some clothes but you can barely stand and God—how much did you drink last night?
“Fuck,” you hiss under your breath when you hear some snickering around the corner. “JASPER!”
“Monty’s idea!” Jasper yells in return and if you weren’t so hung right now, you’d probably be chasing them both around the Ark but you are, so instead of getting a head start, you nearly trip on the way out of your room.
The two delinquents grin at you before running off and it’s Monty who shouts, “Sorry, princess!” before he crashes into a wall.
You’re not sure if you want to cry or laugh.
You settle for the latter.
.
Raven punches a hole in your heart where Finn used to live.
It’s such a wonder, how you two have ended up here. You were the first one to find her when she came from the Ark and you were the one she trusted to save her family. You let her down and you don’t think you can ever forgive yourself. She should hate you, but she doesn’t and it makes you question why on earth you’re still alive.
Raven Reyes deserves a lot of things—she doesn’t deserve the shit you put her through.
She asks you to help with some things concerning the Reaper beacons. She has trouble duplicating them and you don’t push her. The war is over and you have plenty of time to rebuild what you have destroyed. You have plenty of time to reconcile with the ones whom you have lost along the way.
Your heart clenches when you think about what you should say to Raven.
It’s quiet in the mechanic room. She’s sitting in front of her table, working on the beacon, shoulders tense as her hands move over the machine. You hesitate at the doorway and she must sense you because she says,
“You can come in, princess. I won’t bite.”
Your throat clogs. You don’t care about the bite she could inflict—you care more about the wounds in her heart that you have carved there. You wonder if she ever replays that night over and over in her head, the same you do. You wonder if it hurts less.
“What do you need me to do?” you ask when Raven’s fingers stumble over what she’s holding.
“Make yourself useful, princess,” Raven mutters. She finally looks up to look at you and you don’t have to wonder if it hurts less anymore, when you see her eyes.
.
A week later, you go back to Lexa’s tent again. It’s in the middle of the night and half of the camp is asleep but you know that Lexa isn’t. You know that she’s been beating herself up by trying to rebuild Ton DC, trying to fix what she has unintentionally destroyed. You know that she’s haunted by the 250 that she has left for dead; you know that she doesn’t ever want to go to sleep, in fear of what she’ll see.
And you know this because you understand each other, in ways that terrify you both. You know this because you are afraid of the same things as well.
“Lexa,” you say after the guards grant you permission to enter.
She’s hunched over her the war table, fingers running through the plains of the land. Her shoulders are tense and her hair isn’t braided. She looks, if you have to be completely honest, messy. When she turns her head to look at you, you see the shadows underneath her eyes.
“Clarke,” she says, her tongue clicking at the K.
You try not to let your relief show, at finally being called by your real name. In some ways, Lexa sees you for the real you. She saw you at your most vulnerable, when you had to kill Finn. She saw you at your absolute lowest, when you scrubbed his blood from your hands. She saw you at your most compassionate, when you saved her from the gorilla, when you refused to let her die. She saw you at your best and at your worst and you’re grateful, that you’re not just some princess who dropped from the sky in order to save her people, that you’re not a person stripped off morals or conscience. You’re human too, and she sees that.
She sees you.
“Is everything going to plan?” you ask, approaching her carefully.
Lexa nods. “After the Reapers have been turned back to men, we can finally focus on rebuilding back our lives.” She turns back to the map, but even then you know that she’s still watching you. “Ton DC will be rebuilt and the ones affected can move back to their homes.”
“That’s great,” you say but your voice is somber, tired.
Lexa turns to you again. “Why are you here, Clarke?” she asks, tilting her head to the side. “I know that you’re not here to just ask about Ton DC.”
You take a deep breath, letting your eyes roam the map. The Mountain has been crushed but you’ve lost lives on both sides as well. The map should no longer be here but Lexa will always be the Commander, the Heda, just like you’ll always be the one in charge for your people—Clarke the Sky Princess.
“How come you don’t call me princess?” you ask, refusing to look at her eyes. You stare hard at the ruined structure of Ton DC, at the smudged mark that represents the missile.
Lexa frowns, still staring at you. “I don’t understand,” she says.
“Well, it’s just that—my people call me princess. It was just a stupid nickname Finn and Bellamy made up but somehow, everybody caught up with it.” You clear your throat, realizing a bit too late that you sound like an idiot. Lexa is here, worrying about the aftermath of war and you’re worrying about being called princess.
Lexa adjusts her position so that she’s facing you. You hesitate before finally raising your head. Your eyes lock and you wonder how she can easily crawl back into her armor, how she can easily shut off her emotions. Because she’s not looking at you like you’re something fragile or easily broken; she’s looking at you like you’re something to be solved, a puzzle with the pieces missing, someone who can be understood.
“It doesn’t suit you,” she says lightly.
“Oh.” Bellamy would disagree.
“Also.” Lexa straightens her back and reaches out to tilt your chin up. “It’s something Finn called you, am I correct? It does not do well to remind you of the past, Clarke. Especially when the past holds nothing but pain.”
You nod, because it sheds off the weight from your shoulders. You’re about to turn away when Lexa’s hand drops to your wrist, keeping you from moving too much.
“Clarke, wait.” Her voice is low and soft.
You raise your eyebrows. There’s something about the way Lexa is looking at you, pain and nostalgia written all over her features, that makes your heart twists on itself. It’s almost as if a switch has been flicked, because she’s no longer the Commander or the Heda. She’s just Lexa.
“You’re not a princess,” she whispers, “you’re a queen.”
And it’s everything you needed to hear and Lexa is everything you needed to believe in, because she strongly believes in you, and you realize with a muted fascination, that you are so much more than what others have pegged you for.
It doesn’t matter if it’s not the right time or the right place or the right moment but you lean forward and kiss her, softly and with the gentlest pressure applied. Your heart flutters when she reciprocates and God, she’s right—you’re not a princess, you’re a queen and you’re where you need to be right now.