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“Maybe you shouldn’t have waited so long.”
The words are acid in her throat as she spits them at the girl standing in front of her. It hurts Clarke to say it but she knows it hurts Lexa more to hear it.
It's better like this, to dance around and pretend things weren't the way they were would be stupid. A waste of time to spare hurt feelings. A show of weakness. Clarke knows how much Lexa hates weakness. And yet she shows it now.
Clarke can see the anger, the hurt on lexa’s face. But lexa isn’t angry at her. No, she was never the one to lose her temper. She was always so composed. Even now as she feels the burn of Clarke's words, her emotions boil beneath the surface. A clenched jaw, a slight stiffening in posture, the unwelcome sting in her eyes, hidden but still there. But when she speaks, none of it escapes.
“Maybe not, but regretting the past does nothing for the future.” She sounds calm and it drives Clarke crazy. She's a crashing wave beating against an unyielding cliff face, trying to break through. But water has nothing on stone.
“Is that all you have to say?” Clarke, unlike Lexa, allows her emotions, her contempt, to drip from her words.
“I did what was necessary, I'm not going to apologize for that.”
“You believe you did the right thing.” Clarke falters. She had hoped there would at least have been some sign of regret for the betrayal at the mountain.
“I did do the right thing.” Shes quieter now and Clarke stares at her for a moment. She wants to break her, to force her to admit what she really feels, to say what she really wants to. But she knows that Lexa wouldn't falter in her hold on her own thoughts, not unless she was made to. “I saved hundreds of my people, sacrifices must be made, you know this.”
Clarke smirks suddenly and lexa feels uneasiness creep up on her. “Why are you here then, if sacrifices must be made then why did you find me to apologize. You feel guilty for what you did.”
“I am not lacking in empathy, Clarke, I am aware of the lives lost as a result of my actions but I am also aware of the lives saved. I decide with my head but that doesn’t mean my heart is silent.”
“So you would make the decision again, if you had the chance, you wouldn't make a different choice.”
Lexa pauses. The look on Clarke's face, the desperation, as she tries to search Lexa's for the answers shes looking for. Lexa knows she won't find them. She cannot offer the answers Clarke wants now, the same way she couldn't give them to her when they were at the mountain.
“I did what was right for my people. They look to me to lead. My choices are for them, not myself. I would not make a different decision if faced with it again, not even…” She stops talking, her mind lingering on Clarke for too long, forcing her to remember again, the apology she had given, the plea for understanding when she knew there wouldn’t be any.
“Not even what?” Clarke reflects Lexas own hesitation.
Lexa coughs, her gaze wavering from Clarkes “Not even knowing the consequences of my actions, and the fallout they would cause fore the people I-“ There's a battle between her mouth and brain, a scrambled effort to find the right words. For the people she had made a promised to, for the person she cared for, for the person she- “was supposed to protect.”
“Its been a week, Lexa, why come find me now?”
“I never planned on seeking you out again, Clarke. But I needed to know if there was any chance of forgiveness. I suppose it took a week for me to be ready to let go of that hope.”
Because they both know that it's too much, that it will take more than an apology in the woods to clear the conscious of either of them. The events of the mountain was a weight they both had weighing down on their hearts.
There's a silence that stretches out between them, one that’s too much for any one act to breach. But it’s a start.
“And have you let go of that hope?” Clarke asks it and it feels like a challenge. A challenge to the Commander's heart, because Clarke knows that if the Commander only let her mind make the decisions that she wouldn't be here with her tonight.
“No.” It’s a weakness, but Lexa doesn't think about it as one, she can only think about Clarke. “Should I?”
If it’s a challenge, it's one she would gladly lose.
Clarke makes herself wait before answering. She knows that this is the closest she will get to seeing Lexa's true thoughts, at least for tonight.
“Not yet.”
Everyone has a weakness, and maybe that’s what makes people stronger. Because the way people grow to protect their weakness, to defend and work around it is what helps them survive. People who know their weakness can do something about it. People who ignore their weakness in the hope that it would disappear are naive and leaving themselves vulnerable. There is nothing weaker than discarding a part of yourself because you are afraid you won't be strong enough to handle it. Nothing is weaker than giving up. Neither Clarke nor Lexa are weak. Neither is ready to give up. Not yet.