Archive of Our Own ^beta

Grey skies and light fading, headlamps making patterns on the wall

Uptown, it's dead now but, out here no one seems to care at all

[Stars, ‘Take Me to the Riot’]

---

The worst part is the smell.

Childhood games of Human vs. Zombie hadn’t prepared her for that. They taught her that zombies gave you thirty seconds to hide and that the consequences of being caught were limited to suffering through a minute or two of trash talking. Childhood games hadn’t taught them anything at all, basically. Other than the fact that you needed to run. And you needed to hide.

But with the hiding comes the problem of smell. Humans smell different from zombies; they smell alive. They smell like a meal—a wafting mouth-watering scent that zombies can pick up from a half mile away. And zombies? Zombies don’t smell like that at all.

Wells was the one who knew chemistry. He could list all the compounds responsible. She’s forgotten the names, but she knows what they translate into: rotting cabbage and festering wounds. And shit. Straight-up human feces. All of that combined and you get Eau de Zombie.

Rub it all over yourself and keep from retching and you might just make it out alive.

Because, of course, saying that the smell is the worst part is something of a kindness. The worst part is that even if you escape—even if you aren’t crushed or ripped apart or mauled to death—there’s still the virus.

Three days later, you might show signs of infection.

(And that is the actual worst part.)

---

On the Ark, they called it Polyphagic Hypoactive Neurodegenerative Syndrome.

Or—they were supposed to call it that. But Miller’s dad had gotten drunk off of ‘confiscated’ moonshine and used the word ‘zombie’ and it had spread throughout the kids on the Ark as quickly as the virus that caused PHNS itself. Zombie, after all, rolled off the tongue easier. It was also a Forbidden Word, which increased the rate of spread in an exponential manner.

(Monty had once joked that it was a missed opportunity, not calling them PHN-HeadS, but by that point, they’d all been sent to Earth and most of them weren’t much in the mood to make fun of the things that wanted to eat the flesh off their bones.)

In the classroom though, it was still PHNS; using such a clinical term for an outbreak so terrible, it caused humanity to flee their own planet put people at ease. It placed the incident firmly in the Distant Past, where it belonged. PHNS was a part of History, and the last uninfected members of the human race could learn about it with proper (necessary) detachment.

(“On May 10, 2052, a meat-processing plant on the east coast of the United States sent out its usual daily shipment of packaged pork – over twenty million pounds’ worth. That evening, every hog in the factory farm was dead. A recall was issued on the meat, but… Miss Griffin, perhaps you would care to finish teaching this lesson through the use of one of your doodles?”)

The gist of it was this: biological warfare → attaching a prion to a foodborne virus + infecting the livestock of the largest pork producer in the world → infected pork on the market→ people eating infected pork + a severe underestimation of the ability of said virus to mutate when combined with slight radiation = zombies.

It had been a good time to be vegetarian. Or maybe a bad time. Because she’s still not sure which is worse: having it happen or watching it happen. (She’s experienced the watching. She’s not sure anything can be worse than the watching.) Not that it mattered much, in the end. People had stopped eating pork, sure, but by that point, the infection was everywhere. The early version of the virus laid dormant for much longer than later mutations did, and it had passed from person to person in more ways than one.

Within a month, well over 99% of the world’s population was infected or dead.

---

Infected or dead, because there was a difference, it turned out.

People with PHNS were still alive. Technically. And it was this technicality that led to the logic of blasting four hundred confirmed non-infected into space: sooner or later, everyone on Earth—even those with PHNS—would die. By that time, the space population would have flourished and could have come back down to populate the Earth.

(Just a little hiccup in the otherwise smooth history of Homo sapiens sapiens.)

And Hindsight is 20/20 and all, but it’s hard not to call that a pretty fucking huge assumption.

---

Speaking of fucking huge assumptions:

(Fucking huge assumption one)

“What are you doing? Bellamy, what the hell are you doing?”

He does not lower the gun, even when Clarke steps in front of it, holding his gaze for a moment before glancing around at the group of teenagers around them.

“What needs to be done. He was bitten, Clarke.” For a moment, Bellamy actually looks apologetic. “We all know what’s going to happen. This is the only option.”

“Are you crazy? We don’t know anything about the virus now! We don’t know how it infects or who it infects and just shooting him is insane.” She takes another step forward, hand outstretched. (Behind her, Wells is worryingly silent.) “We can lock him in the drop ship. And keep a guard on him. That way we can figure out what we’re dealing with, okay?”

“We’re dealing with zombies,” some asshole calls from the back of the crowd, and Clarke nearly rolls her eyes.

“And we have so much experience dealing with zombies, right?”

There’s no response from the group for that, and Clarke breathes out a long sigh of relief with Bellamy lowers his weapon.

“We shoot him as soon as there’s a single sign of infection.”

Clarke nods, Bellamy and the dispersing crowd already shoved to the back of her mind as she turns to Wells; his eyes are on the ground and his hands flat against his side

“You should have let him shoot me,” he says, and Clarke wonders just how he came to be more altruistic than any human should ever be.

“I just got you back. I’m not—you’re going to be fine.”

---

(Fucking huge assumption two: that the threat was not so small as 13 year old Charlotte, who could slip between the panels of the drop ship and enter Wells’ cell.

Fucking huge assumption three: that the knife belonging to Murphy that was found in Wells’ neck was actually used by Murphy.

Fucking huge assumption four: that Charlotte wouldn’t jump.)

---

(Fucking huge assumption five or maybe fifty-five: that Ark security wouldn’t shoot Anya down as soon as they saw her. That they wouldn’t immediately assume she was infected.)

---

(Fucking huge assumption six or three hundred and six: that when Lexa said they were allies (when Lexa kissed her) she had meant it.)

---

So, yeah.

Clarke was really fucking tired of fucking huge assumptions.

---

Little assumptions, however, were okay.

For example: today, Bellamy would be visiting her.

(She’s lost track of the actual days of week, but Bellamy comes every seven days. And since Bellamy was the first, she thinks of him as her Monday visit. Raven is on Wednesday and Monty is on Friday.

It’s probably stupid and self-pitying for Clarke to note that this schedule apparently leaves no day for her mother, who never visits—who has not visited once. So she will absolutely not note that.)

“Any sightings?” he asks, by way of greeting, as he always does.

Clarke doesn’t turn away from the fire and she doesn’t say thank you when he places some sort of fur blanket over her shoulders with overly gentle hands. (Her throat is swollen with words she cannot say; Bellamy doesn’t seem to mind.)

“A wayward Reaper,” Clarke responds quietly, and Bellamy tries to conceal his alarm, but fails pretty spectacularly. “Only one, Bellamy. And he was… dying. Nothing I could do. I put him out of his misery.”

She gestures to her machete, which is free from blood, though the smell in the air suggests that the gore is not far off. (Olfactory disguise was always good to have readily available, even if it did attract certain scavengers. And, of course, smell like the worst fucking thing in the universe.)

This appears to give Bellamy little comfort; he picks up a stick and starts to poke at the fire, the lines on his brow deepening with every jab at the coals. “They shouldn’t be out this far though. It should have been captured by one of our patrols.”

The question that is brought to the forefront of her mind at this is one that Clarke absolutely should not ask, but does anyways.

“Still working on a cure?”

Bellamy nods after a moment’s hesitation. “Lincoln’s donated a lot of blood. They’re analyzing it; trying to figure out what it is that make him immune to the natural virus and why the Mount Weather variation had some temporary effects, despite that.”

(Lincoln’s pupils were blown. There was blood on his mouth and chin and shirt and hands and knees. Half of his face twitched with alarming frequency.

“Lincoln.” Octavia’s voice did not waver. When Lincoln stumbled (lunched) toward her, she did not step back. “Get it together, Lincoln.”)

She blinks away the memory; it’s replaced by a concerned-looking Bellamy.

“Don’t.” She shifts away from him, avoiding his stare.

“I didn’t say anything,” he returns calmly, but Clarke simply waits, back partially turned and arms crossed, until he gives in, even if it’s in the opposite way she had intended. “Alright, look, I just… it happens to me too, you know. I get… stuck.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Bellamy.”

“I know.” He places a very light hand on her back and Clarke tries not to stiffen. “But if you ever do, you can talk about it with me. That’s all I’m saying.”

Clarke does not speak and Bellamy eventually removes his hand with a sigh. (She feels conflicted about the loss of comfort; even if she hadn’t wanted to admit it was something that part of her craved.)

“I brought you some supplies. I’ll make some breakfast.”

Her throat bobs, but she remains silent.

---

So much of her days are spent in silence now.

Raven is here today, and this fact still holds true. Clarke sketches in the dirt with a dead stick and Raven fiddles with some sort of device, concentrating hard enough that she does not look up at the ravaging flames Clarke has drawn around both of their feet.

Flames are often her subject. Zombies—Reapers and natural –make their appearances as well, but the flames are persistent. (Once, she found herself drawing the familiar contours of a face—she was halfway through the outline of the warpaint before she realized what she was doing and scratched the drawing out with enough force to break her stick in half.)

But Raven is steady and warm, leaning against Clarke’s side, and maybe the flames have a bit less of their usual force today.

“I think I’ve—fuck—no, yeah, I think I’ve got this working.” She still does not remove her eyes from the gadget, however, and the look of intense concentration has not left her face. Raven’s lips curl in an odd way when she’s involved in her work—sometimes her tongue peeks out from behind her lips as well; it’s oddly comforting that these ticks remain in place, even now.

“And... what is it, again?”

Raven groans in slight annoyance and Clarke finds this comforting as well; Raven hasn’t stopped calling her out on her bullshit either. (And that’s fair, isn’t it? Even Clarke has to admit that that’s completely fair.)

“Seriously, Clarke? You weren’t paying attention at all?” She gives her screwdriver another twist with far more gentleness than her words. “It’s an ultrasonic emitter. We’ve been working on figuring out how the zombs’ senses work and we think they might have access to a higher frequency than we do. So maybe… a pulse of sound that wouldn’t affect us would…” She makes a small noise of triumph, then places the screwdriver aside and flips the small device around in her hands. “Affect them.”

“Affect them how?” Clarke reaches for the device and Raven hands it over with a small amount of reluctance.

“Well… I don’t know how. You’re kind of my first test subject.”

As soon as the words are out of Raven’s mouth, she winces, and Clarke feels the compulsion to apologize. But then Raven shakes her head and takes the device back and it fades.

“You’ll have to let me know if it does anything,” she adds, more quietly than Clarke would like.

“I… will.”

Silence takes over again.

Things are much easier under its reign.

---

Her last visitor still has not grasped this concept.

“Something’s going on with the Grounders,” Monty says, almost as soon as he arrives, and Clarke pulls her fur blanket tighter around her neck, stifling the groan (or whimper) that threatens to burst from her throat.

“They’ve pulled back on their patrols. We haven’t seen them around the border at all.”

“Sounds like something to tell your Head of Security. Or the Chancellor.”

He drops his pack on the ground next to her, probably so that he can cross his arms and look fully disapproving.

“Come on, Clarke.”

She turns away from the display of disappointment, clipping one of her recently-washed shirts onto the wire hanging across the camp. “I don’t know anything about what the Grounders are doing. Or what the Arkers are doing. So I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Monty ducks under the wire and moves himself once again into Clarke’s vision, though in the process, he (thankfully) uncrosses his arms. “I want you to say you’ll come back. And help us. You’ve been out here for months Clarke. We need you.”

Frankly, she’s surprised it’s taken him this long to come out and say it. Maybe she should be grateful for that.

(She’s not.)

“None of that is my responsibility anymore.” She stares at the blue cotton in front of her rather than risk another glance in Monty’s direction. “You have elected officials to take care of these things. People who actually know what they’re doing.”

“They don’t. When you were in charge…”

“When I was in charge people died.” And she does look at Monty then, the force of her words spinning her unconsciously in his direction. “When I was in charge…”

“We won,” Monty finishes, voice firm. “We won, Clarke.”

She turns back to her laundry.

“No. We didn’t.”

---

(If Clarke were still in charge, she would have expressed concern about their travel habits; surely checking up on some exiled former-leader wasn’t worth losing three of the Arker’s most competent members for such a long time every week. Surely they should travel together rather than risk the woods alone. Surely they shouldn’t travel at night. Surely they shouldn’t bring her items from their dwindling supply of Mount Weather luxury items –soap and toothpaste and seasoning.

But Clarke wasn’t in charge. So the visits continued, unaltered.

She is grateful for both things. Unfairly so.)

---

It is an off day when she hears the footsteps.

Monty left the night before with a sad smile that Clarke pretended not to see. He had also hugged her—that, Clarke had not avoided.

But now there are footsteps and they do not belong to the three people she has contact with (because yes, she knows their footfalls—Raven’s uneven, but quick limp, Bellamy’s surprisingly soft tread, Monty’s unaltered step).

Thus, her gun is already leveled at the intruder as they emerge from the brush. The intruder, however, is ready for exactly this; her hands are up and free of weapons, and her face is carefully blank. The latter is something Clarke strives for as well, though she is not quite as successful.

“Octavia.”

Octavia’s hands lower at the same speed as Clarke lowers the gun, which is at a pace that is far slower than is probably appropriate.

“Clarke. Hei.”

(She does not know this woman who stands so tall and proudly displays a fresh-looking tattoo that swirls around her right cheekbone in a series of intricate lines. But there is a pocket of warmth in her chest that comes from viewing her, and Clarke identifies it as pride.)

“Bellamy won’t be here for another two days.” Her words come from a place of petulance; as proud as she may be of Octavia, she is still wary of the intrusion.

“You know I am not here for Bellamy.”

She still stands at the edge of the clearing, and Clarke sighs, gesturing that Octavia may approach her hearth. She steps closer, but does not relax and does not sit down even after Clarke has taken a seat.

“Why are you here?”

“Your presence is…” Octavia makes a face. “Requested. In Tondc.”

There is a flank of deer roasting on the fire, which Clarke turns now, trying to conceal her unease with a combination of action and blasé words.

“Requested? Meaning I am well within my right to deny this request.”

As expected, Octavia stiffens. “If you have no honor, yes.”

Her next turn of the spit is far less smooth, but she attempts to keep her voice restrained. “Honor? I am honor-bound to meet with the people who abandoned mine? Whose leader reneged on a verbal contract and left my people to die?”

(Too late, Clarke realizes she is back to calling the Arkers ‘hers’. It is a dangerous precedent to set.)

“No,” Octavia returns, tone even in a way that Clarke’s had not been. “But you are honor-bound to do it when the request comes from me. You owe me, Clarke.”

“I owe—” The cooking is now forgotten, as is Clarke’s mental mantra to remain free from emotion. “And why do I owe you, Octavia? Of all the people I owe… why you?”

“You sent my brother to die.” There is finally a flicker of emotion within Octavia, even if only appears in the clench of her jaw. “And if he’d died, I would have killed you. But he lived. So you just owe me.”

Clarke thinks about arguing that it’s Bellamy that she truly owes, but she suddenly feels far too exhausted to even attempt it. So instead she nods, and that is acquiescence enough, because Octavia almost looks relieved and actually sits down and then Lincoln is suddenly there, stepping out of the bushes and his smile is kind in a way that throws Clarke even further off balance. Her world is shifting again and she doesn’t care much for it at all.

(She has so many debts to repay.)

“… Let’s eat first.”

---

Clarke had planned on making the flank of meat last for a little under a week, so there is plenty for the three of them to feast on. It makes for a quiet dinner without much conversation, though Lincoln does—with that same warm smile—compliment her on her preparation (no wonder: it’s a Woods Clan recipe; Clarke enjoys the result of the seasoning far too much to remove it from her repertoire, even after… everything).

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Clarke finally asks, once she has consumed her fair share. “And why you two were the ones sent?”

“No.” Octavia and Lincoln stand as one, and Clarke barely refrains from rolling her eyes. “The Commander will explain. Leave a note for Bell. We leave now.”

---

‘Now’ is after the sun has set.

A few months ago, this would have been a far more frightening prospect than it is now, but with the fall of Mount Weather and the roundup of (most) of the zombs in the area (organic or manufactured), things had changed.

Which is why Clarke is confused by the alertness with which Octavia and Lincoln move through the woods. Some of it she knows she can lend to habit, but not all. Not when they each carry one of the few automatic weapons that the Grounders possess—all of which were acquired through various skirmishes with the Mountain Men. (They are guns that are meant to pierce flesh quickly and in numerous places—powerful and effective weapons against an enemy that typically takes more than one bullet.)

“How about now?” Clarke eventually questions, after Lincoln nearly fires on a swaying branch. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on now?”

“No.” Octavia’s answer is a repeat of her first, but this time, she sounds less sure. “The Commander will explain.”

Clarke holds her rifle at the ready until the sun rises.

---

Of course, that turns out not to matter at all, because when the attack comes, it is after the second sunset, after a full day of no sleep.

(Later, Clarke wonders if this was purposeful; if they could have possibly evolved to the point where they could plan. It’s a frightening prospect and one that she would rather dismiss immediately.)

The idea of setting a camp was not given, and Clarke does not offer it either; Lincoln and Octavia are still on edge and Clarke feels their urgency, even if they still will not explain the cause. It is this caution that saves them—dulled as it is by a lack of sleep—because Octavia, from her position at the back of the line, hears the snap of a twig and turns with enough time to fire on the form that is already mid-air, lunging from above.

She does not conserve bullets—not that Clarke has much time to contemplate the hole-filled body that lands at her feet, because two more forms drop down from the branches immediately after. Clarke only gets two shots off before she must dive out of the way; Octavia finishes the job (perhaps overkill, since Clarke’s aim had held true, but she is not about to raise a complaint). The other is finished off by Lincoln. It is only with this final spray of bullets, tearing into flesh, that Clarke finally breathes… and regrets it. The smell is pervasive from this distance and Clarke recognizes the scent of decay immediately, even if she questions the conclusions she draws from the aroma just as immediately.

“What the fuck? What the fuck?”

Harsh (and bewildered) words, sure, but fully deserved since a fucking zombie had just leapt at her from a fucking tree.

Her hands are shaking, she now realizes, but she does not holster her weapon. Really, she hardly spares a glance at Lincoln or Octavia, even if she has a few questions for them (though, ‘what the fuck’ sort of covers all of them); the threat had appeared and been dispelled so quickly that she did not trust that a second would not shortly materialize.

Octavia does not seem quite as taken aback (which does little to decrease Clarke’s ire), and even lowers her weapon enough to first spit on, then kick, one of the zombies on the ground before her). The force of her kick flips it onto its back… or, what Clarke thinks is its back; it’s hard to determine even basic anatomy with the number of holes in the corpse.

“Why you are being summoned,” Octavia says, wearing a smile that showcases anything but happiness as she waves her hand to present the carcass.

“What—” Clarke steps closer, taking another look around (and finding Lincoln still at the ready) before holstering her weapon, curiosity overcoming caution.

“They’re… different,” Octavia says, rather needlessly; it is quite apparent that the zombies that had lunged out of a tree are different from the typical lumbering zombie that Clarke had become unfortunately familiar with since landing on Earth.

Beyond that, however, there are physical differences. All of which are supremely disturbing.

“It looks…”

“More human,” Lincoln finishes, his voice a grunt.

Clarke nods, crouching down to take a closer look. Again, she notices the smell, but more in that is masked by something else—almost a pungent sweetness. Even more than that, there is a definite structure to the face, one that suggests a firmness of the skull that cannot be seen in the typical zombie. The eyes—still open—are without the thick film of murkiness that marks a distinct lack of proper vision of normal zombies as well.

Overall, ‘different’ is a mild descriptor. One that does not adequately convey the depth of Clarke’s panic.

She swallows heavily, standing and looking between Octavia and Lincoln.

“Please tell me this is an isolated incident.”

“This is why you are being summoned,” Octavia repeats and Clarke’s heart sinks.

---

It takes them a day and a half to reach Tondc. This distance hardly comes at a surprise, since Clarke had chosen the placement of her new camp with some amount of precision (better to be closer to Tondc than the husk of Mount Weather). Of course, Tondc is a painful memory of another sort; the Woods Clan is still rebuilding, and the marks the missile left, on both the city and its people, are clearly evident, even now.

Octavia and Lincoln relax incrementally as they approach familiar landmarks, but Clarke—if possible—grows tenser. She has been avoiding much during her self-imposed exile, but thoughts of this place (and certain people found within) had become especially taboo. She catches sight of the memorial for those lost to the mission—right in the center of the settlement—and turns her head away with enough force and speed to hear the pop. Octavia’s gaze is on her, but Clarke avoids that too; it does not leave many places for her to look, so perhaps that’s why she ends up taking in the small delegation waiting for her outside one of the larger tents. There are many recognizable faces in the group, but she forces herself to focus on one as she approaches.

She is no longer a leader, but politics have been instilled in her, nevertheless. And many are watching this interaction—maybe the entire (remaining) village.

“Commander,” she says, as soon as she is close enough to be heard.

“Clarke of the Sky People. Welcome.” Lexa’s tone holds the same steel—the same stiffness. It only increases in volume as she continues, gaze flicking away from Clarke and towards the gathering crowd. “For as long as she is here, Clarke of the Sky People is my guest. Do not attack any of the Sky People unless you are attacked—this holds true even in our home. An attack against the Leader of the Sky People is an attack against me. Violators of this decree will be punished to the full extent of our customs. Treat her with the respect you would any visiting dignitary from the neighboring clans.”

The speech is in English, and Clarke is not so foolish as to think it is for anyone’s benefit but hers. She should feel grateful, maybe, but cannot find the emotion within herself.

“Clarke.” Lexa’s voice is quieter now, but no less formal. “Please join me in my tent. I will discuss why I have requested your presence.”

“It’s a little late for that. The reason you ‘requested my presence’ attacked us on the way here.”

So much for instilled politics, but watching the blank slate slip off of Lexa’s face makes it worth it.

“It’s true, Heda,” Octavia adds (pretty unnecessarily, in Clarke’s opinion). “Near the south ridge.”

“Indra.” This is all Lexa says, but it is enough. The stiff woman beside her nods and peels off from the group. (She does not, Clarke notices, spare a glance at Lincoln and Octavia, and Clarke wonders once again what their role in this is.)

The mask is back when Clarke looks at Lexa again and her voice is calm. “Lincoln and Octavia… I would ask that you remain here until we finish our discussion.”

They both nod (Octavia more slowly than Lincoln).

“Clarke?” Lexa continues. “My tent?”

She waits for Clarke to move first; an odd gesture of respect that, on top of anything else, leaves Clarke feeling unsettled and unable to pin down her own emotions. But she does step through the flap of Lexa’s tent.

It is quiet inside, and Clarke is reminded of the last time she and Lexa had stood here (alone). It’s enough to make her sigh, hopefully not loud enough for Lexa to hear.

“Why am I here, Commander?”

(The title is a crutch—of this they are both certainly aware.)

“These new wuskripa – these… smart zombies—there are more.”

Clarke hears Lexa close the tent flap behind them, hears her heavy footfall as she steps closer into the tent. Neither of these sounds should be as important as the words Lexa speaks.

“But why am I here?” She finally turns to face Lexa and tries not to show any surprise at the lack of distance between them. “You know I don’t lead my people any more. Any plan you have to deal with this new threat has nothing to do with me. Speak to the Chancellor.”

“Lincoln and Octavia have already tried.”

The tent is sparse—a few chairs, a war table, and a map—it contains little to distract Clarke from Lexa’s stare.

“They are your ambassadors? They approached the Chancellor on your behalf?”

Lexa waves her hand in a gesture of ambivalence. “They are the only people who have been willing—and able—to communicate with both the Sky People and my people. They established the boundaries and the patrolling patterns. They are the reason there has been no war after the fall of the mountain.” Lexa takes a short breath. “But they have been unsuccessful in forging any alliance between my people and yours.”

“I wonder why that is,” Clarke snaps, anger overtaking her reticence. “When the last alliance went so well.”

There is nothing in Lexa’s face in the pause that follows, and somehow that makes Clarke’s ire only grow.

“Very well. Say what you need to say, Clarke. I see we will go no further until you do.”

Permission to speak. Clara nearly shakes with the injustice of it. Nearly shakes with the sudden eruption of everything boiling in her chest. She wishes she could hold it all in. But her voice is racked by tremors. Her hands curl into fists and her nails cut into her palm. Her throat feels tight and her face red.

“You left us to die,” she spits. “You left my people to be drained and slaughtered.”

“And yet they were not,” Lexa returns calmly, hands still relaxed at her side. “They lived. My people were released and yours were saved.”

She doesn’t know why she feels the need to step closer—maybe it’s to make Lexa see or understand or feel bad—but she takes those two large steps anyways. And—worse—her hand jerks up to Lexa’s throat—without thought or even awareness. Surely, Lexa could bat it away without effort, but she only raises her chin.

“You know what I did. You’ve sent scouts. I know you have. They’ve told you about the dead. The children. Everyone. I killed them all.” She can hardly breathe. The words she has so long avoided saying (thinking) stick in her throat and threaten to asphyxiate. She tightens her grip on Lexa so that she might feel the same. “I had no choice. You took away any choice.”

Finally (finally) there is some emotion in Lexa’s expression, but it is far from what Clarke had been hoping for; regret, remorse, or even angerwould have been fine, but what she sees is pity, and it deflates her in a way Clarke would have not thought possible.

“No one can take away your choice, Clarke. The decision was yours.” Her voice softens and Clarke hates it. “It was the right one.”

“So many are dead.” Her hand drops away and so do her eyes. Instead, she focuses on Lexa’s throat—on the bit of redness left there—on the movement that happens when she takes in a deep breath.

“Innocents,” she continues in a mumble. “If you hadn’t left… we could have spared them.”

“And we would have lost many of our own people. The Mountain Men may have killed everyone before we reached them. The alliance saved my people—people who had been imprisoned for longer and in greater numbers than yours. Both of our decisions were necessary for the survival of our people. But…” Lexa falters for the first time, throat bobbing with the force of her pause. “… That does not mean they were easy.”

Not easy. Clarke could laugh at the oversimplification of it, and she nearly does—ugly, hysterical laughter that she may not be able to stop if let loose.

“I can’t do it again,” Clarke whispers. “Whatever you brought me here for, I can’t do it.”

Lexa places her hand on her shoulder—Clarke is not sure whether the action itself or the fact that it does not cause her to flinch is more of a surprise, but it is enough to get her to look up and meet Lexa’s eyes.

“You can.” She is apologetic, but not in the way Clarke had once imagined she would be. “And you must.”

---

Thousands. That’s how many the Grounders estimated were coming their way.

“Or more,” Lexa says, and Clarke must take in an audible breath. “The ones who have arrived are the first waves of scouts.”

“Zombies don’t have scouts. They can’t have—they’re a horde, Lexa.”

“And the horde will be here within the week. But they have sent small groups ahead.”

“That has to be a coincidence. They can’t—there’s no way a zombie can strategize. Their brains are… decomposed.”

“Perhaps,” Lexa allows, shifting slightly in her chair. “But even if this were the zombies we are accustomed to dealing with, such a large force would be a threat. But you have seen the way these new ones move. They are faster. They wait for the right moment to attack. They are a bigger threat.”

This, at least, cannot be denied.

“Octavia and Lincoln told the Sky People all this? A true alliance may not be… possible, but you’ve been able to zone the forest in rounding up the Reapers. Can something similar not be done here?”

Lexa shakes her head. “It is bigger than that. We need an alliance. We need full collaboration. Otherwise a great number of us will die; that is certain.”

“And that’s not something I can give you.” Clarke rubs her forehead. “I still don’t know why you came to me.”

“You’re the only one who can give this to me. Lincoln and Octavia have tried, but they are warriors, not diplomats. Your current leaders have dismissed their warnings.”

Clarke takes a moment to stare at the map before them—at the carefully drawn border lines that had apparently been agreed upon by both the Grounders and Arkers. Red ‘x’s mark the sites of attacks, all around the southeast section of the map.

“They haven’t seen the threat. Why would they think this is anything but a trap? You need to show them.”

Lexa stares at her; there is an intensity that Lexa always caries with her when discussing the safety of her people, but something else as well—a brightness that Clarke can only liken to… excitement.

“How?”

“The ones that attacked Octavia, Lincoln, and I… what will you do with the bodies?”

“Burn them. We do not yet know if the disease spreads differently with these.”

“Do you have evidence that your people are not immune?” Clarke’s eyes widen in alarm. “Have any of the clans experienced a changing?”

“No. But… a member of Indra’s guard was bitten last week, but he has not experienced any ill effects. Yet.”

Clarke’s fingers drum against the table. “You need to study them. You need to figure out what causes the differences. Don’t burn the ones that attacked us. Lead an envoy to take them to Camp Jaha. Let—let my mom study one.”

“Very well.” Lexa nods. “And you? Will you agree to be a part of this envoy?”

She wants to say ‘no’. She wants nothing to do with this (with Grounders and Arkers and Lexa and her mother and politics and guilt. But walking away now? Leaving her friends and loved ones without warning because of her own reservations? That was hardly an option.

“Alright.” Her voice is even, but something in her chest jumps. She is not sure if it is solely because of the decision itself, because at that exact moment, Lexa smiles.

---

Their envoy is seven: Lexa, Clarke, Octavia, Lincoln, Indra, and two of her guard, who carry a canvas wrapped box between them, a far distance away from their Heda. They speak with Indra mostly in Trigedasleng, and Clarke suddenly regrets that she had not used her months of self-exile more productively and studied up on the language. She considers asking Lexa for lessons as they walk, but that feels a bit more familiar than Clarke is ready for. (She is never ready, it seems, when it comes to Lexa. But then, is she ever ready for anything when it comes to life on Earth?)

There is a tension than runs throughout the group—similar to that which Clarke had experienced on the trip to Tondc—but magnified by several magnitudes now that she understands the nature of the danger. Lincoln, who leads the party, is carrying a weapon that Clarke had not known the Grounders possessed: a large machine gun that—judging from the flex of Lincoln’s muscles—likely weighed upwards of 15 kilos. Lexa walks just behind him, hand on the hilt of her sword. Clarke and Octavia follow, side-by-side in heavy silence.

Until Clarke eventually breaks it, several hours in to their trip.

“How did you come to be here?” she asks, keeping her voice soft. “After Mount Weather… ”

She trails off, uncertain, and Octavia only hesitates slightly before taking pity and filling the gap.

“We stayed at Camp Jaha for a while. But… people still didn’t trust Lincoln. And they didn’t trust me, even with Bellamy…” She swallows, lines of her face taunt. “So we focused on patrolling. There were still a lot of Reapers in the area and the Chancellor wanted them cured of the addiction rather than just killed. But a lot of the Arkers… didn’t really want to go to that trouble. Not for broken allies. But Lincoln and I did.” Octavia spares a sideways glance at Clarke. “Your mom set up a recovery center. That was a good thing.”

That sounds like her mom. It makes a smile slip on to Clarke’s face, just thinking of it.

“It also helped her study the Mount Weather replica virus. Maybe it’ll even help us find a cure for the freshly bitten. You probably heard that Lincoln is helping with that too.”

Clarke nods, gaze flickering ahead to Lincoln again. “I heard.”

“Not everyone could be saved. Some were too far gone—brain decomposition, Abby said—but we saved a few. And after the Woods Clan figured out what we were doing, we started getting Reaper ‘packages’.” She grins. “Knocked out and bound to trees just outside the camp. We did what we could. And it led to us setting up patrol boundaries with Indra. But not everyone was down with that. And when Indra warned us about the new zombs… no one believed that either. So Lexa thought… you.”

Octavia shrugs, like she doesn’t really agree, and Clarke can’t really blame her. Though there still is a bit of pride left in her, even now.

“It’s not easy, is it? Being the bridge?”

She doesn’t get a response for a while, but when it comes, it is honest (if grudgingly so). “No. It’s not.”

---

They walk for 13 hours before setting camp. There’s something about the grueling pace that is pleasing to Clarke—the exhaustion blocks out thoughts of anything but taking the next step. It’s a better way of clearing her mind than anything else Clarke has experienced, but it can come at a steep cost; her legs ache by the time the Commander throws up her hand to halt their party, then nods to Lincoln, who slips through an overhang of vegetation that Clarke suddenly realizes must disguise the mouth of a tunnel. He emmerges a few minutes later, holding back the vines to allow the remainder of the group to pass through.

As Clarke had suspected, the opening leads to the mines, and a little further in, to a now-vacant Reaper camp. Their light is limited to the few torches that Octavia lights. Clarke searches both her and Lincoln’s dimly lit faces for any sign of discomfort in being here, but finds none.

“We will rest until daybreak. Indra, assign shifts.”

The chief nods and calls her warriors to her after they have set down their cargo a bit further in. After another moment, she summons Octavia and Lincoln as well, who exchange glances, but comply. Clarke waits for her own assignment, but Indra pays her no mind. It’s just as well.

“There were many we could not save,” Lexa says, suddenly at Clarke’s side. “But your Chancellor has behaved honorably in saving those she could.” At Clarke’s look, she adds, “I heard you speaking with Octavia about it. I wanted to add my… gratitude. That this…” She gestures at the tunnel—at the bones and cages and filth. “…Is a thing of the past.”

“I didn’t even know the tunnels came this way,” Clarke says with a frown. “But I didn’t have anything to do with the Reapers’ recovery. You know that.”

Lexa shakes her head. “We all leave a legacy of leadership behind, even when we are no longer in charge. You should know that.”

This time, Clarke does not look away, though she has no response.

---

The attack comes in the night.

Sleep had not come easily for her; the lingering smell of the tunnel and the press of memories had felt suffocating. She cannot say how much time passes between her finally falling asleep and the first shout of alarm, but awareness does not come easily. It is only after she is pulled to her feet that she thinks to unholster her weapon and begin firing at the shambling forms that have seemingly flooded the tunnels.

"Maryk and Natia have been overtaken," Lexa yells, leaving Clarke's ears ringing. "Keep your back to the wall.”

And then she's gone. Clarke watches her run towards the tunnel entrance, catching only flashes of her form in the brief explosions of light from Lincoln's machine gun and the flickering torches. It is nearly impossible to make sense of the chaos, but when a figure lurches forward from the ball of confusion with half of its face is missing, Clarke is quick enough to put a bullet through what's left of its brain. She fires another shot once it's dropped to the floor, just to be sure. More follow, however, and such thoroughness falls to the wayside. Especially when Octavia cuts through the block of bodies to reach her side, looking bloodied and furious as she sheaths her sword and pulls a shotgun from her back.

"Where the fuck did so many come from?" she snarls, clearly not expecting an answer. "How did we miss this?"

"How many?" Her next shot misses, pierces the jaw of the zombie before her and she has a burst of panic, thinking of the potential ricochet, but it passes quickly, overtaken by more immediate threats.

"Dozens. At least. They swarmed at once."

The next blast of Octavia's shotgun sprays gore across Clarke's face; she reflexively spits and tries to keep from subsequently gagging.

"How did-?" The rest of her question is swallowed as she is knocked forward, hitting the dirt with enough force to stun her, spots dancing across her vision. A sharp pain rips through her shoulder and she reflexively throws her elbow back towards the source. It throws her attacker off, and Octavia's boot catches it in the chest, flinging the zombie back far enough to then shoot.

She's then pulled to her feet by a strong one-handed tug to her bicep, only to sway as soon as she's standing. Octavia's hand shoots out again to steady her.

"Don't die," Octavia grunts. "My brother will kill me."

The thought is oddly comforting, but not as much as the fact that there seems to be a thinning of the horde. One last shot clears the final zombie from Clarke's view.

And then all that is left is stillness.

It's almost like she can breathe again, even if any breath taken will be filled with the pungent and rotten stink that fills the space. Bodies litter the floor, almost in mounds, especially toward the front opening of the tunnel where Lincoln, Indra, and Lexa are now visible. Decayed flesh and blood covers them both, but that does not stop Lincoln from dropping his gun and rushing forwards to embrace Octavia, who grips the fabric of his coat in visible relief.

"Oso gonplei nou ste odon nowe," Lexa murmurs, once she is at Clarke's side, and Clarke furrows her brow in concentration.

"... Our fight is... never over?"

Lexa's smile is genuine albeit small, though her eyes do not leave Indra, who is pulling the bodies of her two warriors from the carnage.

"Yes. Good."

They stand in silence for a moment, before something breaks through Clarke's post-fight fog.

"I'm sorry. About... Maryk and Natia."

"They fought well. They saved the rest of us."

And that is what it comes down to. That is the perspective a leader must take: a few for many. (A small group of Arkers for the safety of hundreds of Grounders.) Clarke does not know if this is a lesson she will ever handle with grace.

With a sigh, Clarke turns to look for her bag, but she is stopped by a tight grip on her elbow.

"Lexa--" But the look on Lexa's face stops her words as well.

There is only fear there as she reaches for Clarke's shoulder and it is then that the pain blossoms forth again. Lexa's hand meets Clarke's skin, through the tears in her jacket and shirt.

The light in the room is still low, but when Lexa's fingers pull away, the blood on them glistens.

---

“We cannot take her to the Skaikru camp.” Indra is the first to speak, and she does so with a lack of emotion that Clarke finds herself appreciating. “But we cannot kill her,” she adds, and her tone in this—almost grudging—Clarke does not so much appreciate.

“She could live,” Octavia says, not with not quite the same level of detachment. “I did.”

“When bitten by the wuskripa we’re used to,” Lincoln corrects gently, casting an apologetic look Clarke’s way.

“Regardless,” Lexa cuts in. “There is no argument here. Clarke will be given a chance to fight the sickness. If we take her to the Camp of the Sky People…”

“No.” Clarke does not look down, though the three of the four faces that turn her way are full of barely repressed emotion that she does not particularly want to see. “We don’t know the timeline of this virus. You can’t take me to my people when I’m unstable.”

Indra nods, and finally, there is something other than disdain in her expression. “She is right, Heda.”

“Then Clarke will remain here.” Lexa’s shoulders straighten, as though preparing for an argument. “As will I.”

“Heda—”

Lexa ignores Indra, continuing onwards. “Lincoln and Octavia will go to the camp of the Sky People. They will tell them what has happened.”

“You should… tell my mom.” The thought makes her throat feel tight, and she must swallow heavily to continue. “She’ll come. And she’ll… know the threat. Whatever happens, she’ll know this threat is real.”

“Go,” Lexa confirms. “Run.”

With a nod, Lincoln and Octavia stand and—after a moment’s hesitation—Octavia hugs Clarke, tight and brief.

“Don’t die,” she says again, this time with a fierce urgency.

“Take a sample with you,” Clarke replies, in lieu of a promise she may not be able to keep. “A head that isn’t torn up by bullets. It could help.”

“We will be quick.” Lincoln’s voice is calm and his stare reassuring. “Be strong, Clarke.”

She looks between them both and has to swallow back a wave of emotions, yet again.

---

“You don’t have to do that.”

The metal of the cage is cold and covered in a dampness that feels unpleasant against the palm of her hand. But Clarke ignores Lexa’s words and shuts the door behind her with an audible clang.

“Lock it.”

“Clarke.” Lexa has never begged, and there is no plea in her voice now. But there is something—a soft note of regret.

Clarke ignores that too.

“Lexa. Lock it.”

There is no key that Clarke can see, but a heavy bar can be pulled down and latched into place, which Lexa does—with Indra’s help—after a long moment of hesitation. There are no stools or blankets or benches within, so Clarke sits on the dirt ground with a soft sigh, leaning her head back against the cool bars.

“You should clean the wound.” The fact that Indra speaks at all is a surprise, but when coupled with the small bag of a familiar red poultice offered through the bars of the cage, Clarke’s eyebrows arch upwards.

“Ste yuj, Klark kom Skaikru.”

Clarke watches her retreating form, feeling oddly consoled (but not entirely sure if she needed such consoling in the first place).

“She told you to stay strong. It is what we tell all our warriors before the Last Trial.” Lexa explains, walking around the cage until she is alongside where Clarke sits. “Take off your jacket; we must apply this medicine now.”

“A topical treatment cannot scrub a virus from the blood,” she returns, but complies nevertheless.

“It is tradition.”

And perhaps this is true, because the way Lexa crouches down and reaches through the bars to take Clarke’s coat—the way she carefully folds it—it feels very much like a ritual. (But whether it is one for death or rebirth, Clarke cannot be certain.)

“When I went through the Last Trial, it was Anya who watched over me,” Lexa continues, her voice still slightly off. “She bound my hands and washed my wound and told me I must live.” She reaches for Clarke’s shirt next, ripping it further to better expose the wound. “And when Costia received the bite, I did the same for her.”

Lexa reaches for the poultice and it is only then that Clarke pulls away with a jerk, as though emerging from a trance.

“There could—” She swallows. “There could be cuts on your hands. You don’t know if you’re immune.”

“My gloves are untorn. Allow me to oversee.”

Whether from her fall or psychosomatic symptoms (or something else entirely), Clarke’s head feels light and her thoughts disjointed; it takes her several moments to respond, and Lexa waits, hands poised above the bag that rests in Clarke’s grip.  

“Please,” Lexa finally murmurs.

“… Alright.”

Her voice is barely a rasp, but Lexa hears, and her touch is gentle as she takes the bag. It is gentler still—three breaths later—when she spreads the mix of herbs over the bite. Clarke must shut her eyes, but this does little to block out the oncoming spell of dizziness.

“Hodnes laik kwelne.”

It is barely a whisper and Clarke knows that Lexa is speaking to herself.

---

Sleep eventually takes her—not much had been had the night before, after all.

When she wakes, there is a warmth at her back and she twists her neck to find it’s Lexa’s back pressed against hers, her posture mirroring Clarke’s, with the warmed steel of the cage bars between them.

“How long was I asleep?”

It’s hard to tell from the light in the tunnel alone; not much pierces through the overhang at the entrance. Even Lexa is silhouetted, and the shadows make it difficult to make out her expression; she falls back into her previous position, preferring the warm touch to the uncertainties of vision.  

“A few hours. How do you feel?”

Clarke licks her lips. “Thirsty.”

She regrets her honesty almost immediately, because Lexa shifts away, but she’s back another second later, after passing a waterskin through the bars and carefully placing it into Clarke’s hands (she has taken off her gloves and the bare brush of her skin makes Clarke twitch).

The water is cool, but Clarke does not take the time to wonder how before taking several large gulps. (Is dehydration something she should be concerned with? She does not remember this being a side-effect of the virus, but they never dwelled on the specifics in her classes. And practical experience has been less than helpful, thus far.)

“How should I feel?”

Lexa shifts. “I… do not know what you mean.”

“If I were… what would I feel right now if I were infected?”

A scuffling noise comes from the entrance and Lexa stills; the point of her elbow digs into Clarke’s back as she reaches for the sword at her belt. But when it is only Indra, slipping into the tunnels with barely a look in their direction, Lexa settles once again.

“It is hard to say.”

“But you’ve seen it? Some members of your clan… not everyone is immune.”

“No.” There’s a scraping noise from behind her and Clarke looks over her shoulder to discover that Lexa is tearing away the bark of a stick of wood with her knife. Each stroke is slow and measured, in cadence with Lexa’s voice. “Even with the Trial to weed out those whose bodies cannot withstand the sickness, there are still some who are born…” The noise of her whittling stops as she trails off.

“Kwelen,” Clarke finishes, remembering the word. “Weak.”

“Yes.”

Clarke faces forward once again, and takes another sip from the waterskin in the silence, waiting for Lexa to continue.

“Confusion,” she finally says. “Hunger. Twitching. But… not on the first day.”

“When you know for sure...” Clarke closes her eyes and breathes in deeply. She can feel Lexa’s stillness at her back. “Will you do it? It if has to be done?”

A loud crack echoes through the tunnel. It takes Clarke a moment to realize that Lexa has snapped her whittling stick in half.

“You are not weak, Clarke.”

Clarke does not know how to respond to this. Instead, she asks again.

“Will you do it?”

When Lexa answers, her voice is low, but seemingly controlled. For a moment, Clarke wishes she could see her face. (But she revokes the wish a moment later; it is better not to know.)

“I will.”

---

Once awake, even after such an unsatisfying sleep, Clarke feels restless. Lexa is mostly silent, the scratching of her knife against (a new piece of) wood the only thing piercing the dead air. Indra comes in to start a fire then prepare a lunch (dinner?) of thin stripped meat that she wraps around a series of sticks and hands to Clarke, in a bundle, without comment.

She is surprised at the quantity, especially when compared with Indra and Lexa’s portions, but Lexa, still without turning, explains.

“You must eat it all. For strength in the Trial.”

Clarke does not need further convincing (she is hungry and further, unwilling to insult Indra). She tears a piece off of the stick. The taste is not one that she recognizes, but it has more flavor than she is expecting, especially for something prepared outside of a home hearth. The inclination to thank Indra is something she swallows down with the meat.

This is not a favor, it is a duty.

“What do members of your clan do?” Clarke asks, taking another bite. “While they wait for… the results of the Trial?”

“Do?” Lexa shifts. “They do not do. They wait.”

It’s not the answer that she had been hoping for. But it might not have been the right question.

“What did you do?”

She cannot see Lexa’s face, of course, but she thinks there is a hint of a smile in her voice.

“I was eight.”

Clarke tries to imagine it: a small, surely precocious Lexa being told to sit still and wait. She has a feeling that Lexa—even at eight—was better at the concept than Clarke ever would be. But then Lexa speaks again and Clarke need not supply her own mental image.

“Anya braided my hair,” she begins, and her voice is soft enough that Clarke knows her words are not ones often shared. “She talked to me of the great victories of the Trigedakru. She told me of her Trial. And of the Trials of those found kwelen.”

Lexa takes a deep breath; Clarke feels her shoulders move up and down against her own back.

“She told me she would give me an honorable death—a painless death—if it came to that. She told me…” From the fire, there is a loud pop. Neither she nor Lexa react. Clarke does not even turn to check on the source of the sound, afraid of disrupting Lexa’s train of thought. “She told me that she would still think well of me. Even if I failed.”

This, Clarke has a harder time imagining. Her memories of Anya are tainted by everything but this form of almost softness. (But then she remembers her praise—hard won, but never grudging—and her throat feels tight with the loss.)

Still, Lexa seems to anticipate some form of disbelief, because she continues.

“It was the most I’d ever heard Anya speak. Perhaps the most I ever heard her speak again.”

You fought well, Anya once had said, blood in her smile as she looked up at Clarke from the ground. Anya had taught with action, not words. But for an eight year old Heda-to-be, she had made an exception. Maybe just that once.

“Would you like for me to talk to you of such things?”

And Lexa, it seemed, would make an exception for Clarke.

(Maybe just this once.)

“Yes.”

---

(Lexa speaks for hours.

Clarke falls asleep to the sound of her voice—softer than it typically is—telling of the ancestors of the Woods Clan.)

---

Lexa is back to carving when Clarke wakes again.

In her sleep, she had slumped onto her side and her hand had found a fistful of the tail of Lexa’s coat. It’s hardly behavior worthy of one of the Grounder warriors she was meant to be emulating during her unintentional Trial. But there’s little to be done now, outside of pulling away with the bit of dignity she can muster, and hoping Lexa makes no comment on the positioning.

(She is too tired to truly care; her body aches in a way that she does not recognize.)

“You slept for many hours,” Lexa supplies, her voice even. “How do you feel?”

“Sore.” By the fire, Indra looks up to exchange a glance with Lexa, then goes back to sharpening some sort of small blade that Clarke cannot identify. “What does that mean?”

Lexa does not hesitate in her response. “It means you should stretch.”

Of course, that’s not what Clarke had meant at all. But the advice is still good. The cage is tall enough for her to stand in, which she is grateful for when she pulls herself to her feet and reaches through the top bars, feeling something pop in her uninjured shoulder. She feels nothing at all in the other (wounded) shoulder, which is somehow both reassuring and worrying at once.

“Maybe you should go for a walk,” Lexa offers, and Clarke turns in time to see the deep frown on Indra’s face that results from that suggestion. “You clearly have full use of your mental faculties.”

“I…”

Both Indra and Lexa have jumped to their feet and drawn their weapons before Clarke even hears the sound of rustling bushes. But when Raven stumbles through the entrance to the tunnel, she is the quickest to release a sigh of relief.

“Raven!”

Lincoln follows just after, offering a hand to help her down the somewhat steep and jagged entrance way. Raven, of course, pointedly ignores the gesture.

“Clarke? Crap, it’s dark in here. Couldn’t you have at least…”

In that moment, Raven’s eyes appear to adjust to the dark, because they find Clarke’s and her body goes rigid. And then spins on her good leg to face Lincoln, who seems to be the closest target for which to expel her ire.

“Why the fuck is she in a cage? What the fuck is the matter with you?”

“Raven...” Clarke starts, but it’s of little help, the woman is already done with Lincoln and moving towards the cage… until Indra steps directly in front of her. The expression on Raven’s face is definitely one that Clarke has seen before (usually right before Raven does something that’s about to cause quite a bit of damage to someone).

“Raven,” she says again. “It’s alright. They told you I was bitten, right? I’m just being… sure.”

Neither Raven nor Indra show any sign of having heard, or backing down from their staring contest.

“Indra! Chil yu daun!” Lexa does not lay a hand on her chief, but Indra steps out of Raven’s path as though she is being forcibly pulled away. And thankfully, Raven does not go directly towards the latch, but instead steps closer to Clarke, wrapping her hands around the bars of the cage.

“Clarke,” she sighs, her expression softening. “What the hell are you doing in there?”

“Not taking chances.” Clarke crosses her arms. “Now tell me what you’re doing here. Did…” It all catches up with her and something catches in her throat. “Is my mom…?”

“Abby’s working on the zomb that Octavia and Lincoln brought. She and the nerd herd are analyzing it and trying to... you know. Figure something out.” She takes a moment to look Clarke over, squinting in the low light. “You look alright, right? Maybe you’re immune.”

“It’s only been a day. Is my mom…?”

Raven shifts on her feet and Clarke resists the impulse to step closer—to put her hands over the calloused ones that are resting (so unafraid) on the bars between them. She is craving human touch; funny that she hadn’t felt like this during all her months of exile.

“She’s worried. Hasn’t left the lab since they brought her the zomb. She wanted to come here right away, but… we convinced her to stay and start the analysis. At least for a day.”

“Good. Good.” It makes sense, logically. But a sharp pain rips through her chest, nevertheless. “So she sent you?”

“I sent myself,” Raven corrects, looking a bit put out that Clarke would think otherwise. “Not that I was worried or whatever. Because you’re not going to… this isn’t going to take you down. But. You know.” She shrugs a single shoulder. “I wanted to remind you of that.”

Clarke’s laugh is weak, and so is Raven’s resulting smile.

“Bellamy and Monty are off-site. Setting up a transmitter using some of the Mount Weather stuff. Otherwise they would have been here too.”

“Yeah.” Part of Clarke is glad they aren’t. (The other part of her—the selfish part—wishes they were.) “There’s… more going on than just this. What about the horde coming? Are the Arkers willing to listen now?”

Judging from the way Raven looks away towards Lexa with a scowl on her face, Clarke would guess the answer to her question is ‘no’.

“The sample Octavia brought isn’t like anything we’ve seen before. So the threat is definitely real. But I don’t think anyone wants to jump back into bed with the one who seriously fucked us over last time. And not in the fun way.”

“Raven…”

“What? Seriously, Clarke? You trust her?”

Lexa had withdrawn further into the tunnel with Indra and Lincoln, but Clarke does not doubt that they can all hear the details of the conversation currently ongoing.

“She is predictable when it comes to keeping her people safe,” she finally says. “I trust her to do that. And right now… keeping her people safe means working with us.”

“Right now,” Raven repeats, expression knowing. “So what about later?”

“Later isn’t something we have time to think about.” Finally, Clarke does take a step closer, and her voice lowers as well. “You have to go back, Raven. Convince them that we need to work with the Grounders. For now.”

“What?” Raven looks at her like she’s crazy (and maybe she is). “Are you serious right now? There’s no way anyone is going to listen to me. And even if they did… I wouldn’t want them to. Clarke, they left me in there. Left me, Bellamy, your mom—how can you even ask me to…”

“Because it’s our best chance.” And here she is. Back to making compromises and guessing on best chances. Despite just having woken up, Clarke is tired again. “We don’t have enough time to second guess it. There are new zombies coming. And fast. We have to protect our people. Please, Raven. Go do what you can.”

Raven looks around the tunnel, gaze falling on the group standing silently, a ways off. “I should stay until Abby gets here. You shouldn’t be alone. With them.”

“I need you at Camp Jaha more than I need you here. We’re talking about the lives of everyone there. I’m… no one.” Raven opens her mouth to protest, but Clarke quickly cuts her off. “Raven, please.”

The resulting nod is slow, but clear, and Clarke breathes a small sigh of relief.

“I’m not good at this stuff,” Raven warns. “People are stupid. They usually don’t make sense.”

Job done, she allows herself a brief moment of relief, and folds her hands around the tops of Raven’s wrists. “Just do what you can.”

---

There is a heated debate between Lexa and Indra before Raven is able to leave.

The specific words—coming forth in rapid Trigedasleng—escape her, but she notices the furtive glances cast in her direction by Indra and Lincoln both. The latter does not participate (it is unclear to Clarke just what his status within the Woods clan is; exile is for life, she had thought, and yet), but listens intently and seems surprised when Lexa tells him to help Raven return to Camp Jaha, a command that Indra does not appear at all happy with.

It takes Clarke longer than it should (and a pointed glare from Indra) to understand the situation.

“You should have gone with them. You need a treaty. And it’s not going to happen without you.”

Indra merely gestures to Clarke in her agreement, as though too exasperated to say another word.

“My place is here.”

But not too exasperated to let out a loud huff at these words.

“Heda!”

“My place is here,” Lexa repeats. “The Chancellor will be ready to compromise when she sees the effect this newest threat has had on her personally.”

This is… likely true. But it almost feels like an afterthought, even if it does seem to satisfy Indra somewhat, who bows her head slightly.

“But I do not need to explain my actions to you, Indra. Not now. Gon we.”

“Sha, Heda.”

The bars of the cage are cool when Clarke leans up against them with a sigh, watching Indra stalk off, her shoulders tight.

“Glad to hear you’re using all your resources,” she mumbles, steadily keeping her gaze towards the tunnel mouth. “But the Chancellor’s not the only one you need to convince. There’re others with power. You know that.”

“I know to use any advantage I may have to help my people.” There is something in Lexa’s voice that makes Clarke turn her head enough to catch sight of her in the corner of her eye. The commander’s face is carefully blank, as it so often is, but the odd tint to her voice persists as she continues. “I cannot apologize for that.”

“And for that, Commander, I should not blame you.”

(‘Cannot’s and ‘should’s. Clarke wonders how long they will both walk this fine line.)

---

The second day drags far worse than the first.

Clarke is unable to sit still, pacing in her cage until she starts to feel dizzy. She wishes she could find the calmness of Indra or Lexa, who hardly speak as they huddle together over the fire, working on what looks like the same piece of steel that Indra had been sharpening earlier.

Her head aches from more than her restlessness, and the sensation only worsens the more she tries not to think of the implications of this. Every abnormal sensation within her now feels like a sign that the virus had taken hold and is eating away at her brain—every pain, thought, and unconscious action had to be analyzed. She may go insane from this alone, even before any trace of actual PHNS (or whatever they would call this new zombism) appears.

“Clarke.”

It’s Lexa, of course, who speaks. They have spent the last 35 hours or so in an odd sort of conversation: stretches of silence that last for hours followed by a burst of uncharacteristic speech—stories or tales or explanations—from Lexa. So this quiet interruption is not especially unusual. The tone, however, carries a great deal, and when Clarke spins to face her, Lexa’s expression is less guarded than normal, if only fractionally so.

“Lexa, what…?”

“I have something for you.”

She raises her hands. Resting across her palms is a dagger, not especially small in size, but not overly large either. The handle is wood and the blade steel, and Clarke recognizes both as the pieces Lexa and Indra have (respectively) been working on since Clarke first placed herself in this cage. Stepping closer, more of the details come into focus: the blade itself is plain, and although it is expertly polished and sharpened, it is the wood of the handle that draws her attention.

“We do not write,” Lexa begins, and Clarke hardly recognizes her voice with the hesitation laced in. “But Trial blades are meant to tell a tale without words. They are meant to represent the life of the one who is being tested.”

The shape of the handle is regular—curved only slightly to allow for a proper grip, but otherwise rectangular. The design on the handle, however, is anything but.

Clarke had once asked Octavia about her own Trial knife—asked about the small butterflies that latched together and created a pattern not unlike that of armor—but she had said nothing other than that it was a gift from Lincoln.

And now she understands—stepping even closer to the bars that separate her and Lexa— Clarke understands.

Into her handle is carved a tree.

The trunk begins at the pommel: it is thick and seems to twist upon itself, lines of the bark interweaving and twisting upwards until they curl outwards into sturdy branches that seem to bend around the knife until the meet and join with others, from separate parts of the tree. Clarke aches for more light, so that she might fully see the intricate lines, but even now, there is the vague sense that the tree is a loop of supporting and leaning branches, though it is impossible to tell which is which.

“Hodnes laik uf,” Lexa whispers. “Love is strength. I do not know that I believe these words, but I… see the appeal. And the value. And if…” She swallows and her hands give—for the first time—the slightest quiver. “If I must use this steel to end your suffering, I will still… try to reflect on them further.”

Clarke looks into Lexa’s face and wonders how lips pressed together and a single line in a brow can show so very much.

“Lexa…”

“But if you survive, I hope you will carry it with you.” She swallows again. Blinks. “Will you?”

With Raven, she had allowed herself to reach out and touch. But now, it is hardly a conscious decision at all.

Her hands slip through the bars and—rather than take the knife—press into the backs of Lexa’s, her palms flat against the skin.  

“Yes.”

---

She takes a turn for the worse only a few hours later.

First, there is the sensation of being hot and cold, all at once. Then comes the shakes. Lexa offers their sole blanket and tries to maintain the mask that makes her face appear blank. But by the time Clarke first vomits, the mask has slipped and she begins to pace, Indra’s eyes following her back and forth across the tunnel.

She growls something that Clarke does not catch and to which Indra does not reply. But as the hours continue to creep past, Clarke cares less and less about understanding anything about the word around her.

By the time her mom shows up, she is certain she is hallucinating.

---

(But she isn’t.)

(Not yet.)

“Clarke!”

There is a scuffle of some kind. And lots of shouting. Clarke doesn’t understand much of it from her position on the floor, curled into a corner of the cage, but when her mom is suddenly there, kneeling on the floor just outside of the bars Clarke is leaning against, she doesn’t really care.

“Mom.”

She’s too tired to be mortified by the tears that spring up (too tired to try to hold them back, as well, but that’s a given).

“Oh, Clarke. Oh, honey. It’s alright. It’s going to be alright.”

Clarke shuts her eyes so that she doesn’t have to see the fear in her mom’s eyes. It makes it easier to believe her words.

---

“This is a good sign.”

Under her blanket, Clarke continues to try to block out the outside world and stop shivering. She is not particularly successful in either attempt, and her mom’s words drift through the haze that presses in on her consciousness.

“I do not see how this is a good sign.” Lexa. Her voice tense, but otherwise without feeling.

“With PHNS—the original disease—the body doesn’t respond like this. There’s no immune response.”

“Yes. So?”

“An immune response—the fever, vomiting, even cell necrosis—this all means that Clarke’s body is fighting. PHNS isn’t actually a virus, though people usually call it that. It’s a prion misfolding, which can’t really be fought off by the body’s immune system. That’s why finding a cure has been so difficult—the immunity of so many of your people is genetic. The body can’t be taught to fight it off. But this is different. Her body is responding as though the disease is caused by a virus. Or carried by a virus. So this is good. An immune response is good.”

“A cure could be found?”

“Maybe not a ‘cure’, but… a vaccine. Introducing a small, harmless amount of the virus to the body and allowing it develop the ability to fight it off.”

“And your people are working on this?”

“Yes, but… it will take time.”

There is a long pause, during which Clarke feels herself begin to drift off to sleep again.

“Clarke will be fine.”

It’s Lexa that breaks the silence. Her voice sounds so sure that Clarke nearly finds the strength to open her eyes.

---

Determining the passage of time becomes difficult.

Clarke drifts in and out of consciousness, often to the sound of quiet murmurs punctuated by the occasional burst of more frenzied conversation.

Sometimes, there is a presence at her side, resting against the outside of the bars of her cage. In her more lucid moments, she can tell when it’s her mom and when it’s Lexa, based not on the meaning of their words, but the tone with which they speak them.

(Her mom is wistful and full of the past.)

(Lexa is encouraging and full of the future.)

---

When Clarke wakes next, she is hungry.

But not for flesh. (She sniffs at the air to be sure; it’s almost consoling when the vague smell of rotting flesh is still as abhorrent to her as ever.)

During the night (nights? She cannot be sure how long she’s slept) she’d curled into a ball in the corner of her cage, and now, when she stretches out, it’s with a mixture of pleasure and pain. Her groan results in her name coming from two separate sources, though both instances of the word are inflected with concern.

“Clarke?”

“I’m fine,” she rasps, though she stumbles slightly when she steps forward—not an especially reassuring move. “I’m fine. Really.”

It’s her mom who steps closer first, though Lexa is not far behind.

“You… know who you are?” she asks.

“No disorientation? Discoordination?” Lexa adds.

“No.” Clarke shakes her head. “I’m good. I just…”

Their faces are practically pressed up against the bars of the cage, worry etched into the line crossing Lexa’s brown and the widening of her mom’s eyes.

“… Can I brush my teeth?”

Her mom laughs. Lexa even smiles. It’s such a strange image that Clarke shakes her head a little to make sure that it’s real.

But then her mom returns with a chew stick and offers to braid her hair and that feels real enough.

--

“You look well.” Despite Clarke’s own protests, she had been removed from the cage and placed in front of the fire in what was a firm decision by both her mother and Lexa. Indra had disappeared—troop organization, Lexa had said), so Clarke has no one else on the side of logic and precaution. It’s hard to feel put out by it when the fire is so warm and soothing, and perhaps it is this contentment that Lexa is counting on when she speaks now. “Well enough to march with us.”

Clarke curls her knees to her chest and allows a sort of half nod, eyes drifting over to where Abby converses with a runner from Camp Jaha, towards the entrance of the tunnel. “Did you and the Chancellor sort everything out, then?”

Because this is the first time it’s been brought up since Clarke emerged from her cage. She hasn’t even seen Lexa and her mom speak, let alone come to any sort of diplomatic arrangement, but there have been hours of sleep and days of sickness and she can’t really be sure of anything.

“Yes. We will fight against the horde together. But without official treaty.”

“That’s the best you could ask for, probably.”

They had all agreed that everyone should keep their distance from Clarke, even once she had left the cage. (An actual virus could mean a different form of transfusion, after all.) But when Clarke looks up and away from the fire, Lexa is close enough for her to see the flames reflected in her pupils. (Close enough to reach out and touch.)

“You are still angry with me.”

She doesn’t sound surprised, exactly, but there is certainly a hint of emotion that Lexa can’t manage to hide (it might be disappointment – it might even be sadness).

“Not—I’m not angry, Lexa. I just don’t…” Clarke sighs, trailing off. “I don’t know if I can forgive you yet. I know you did what you had to and maybe I would have done the same thing. But I still don’t trust you with my people.”

“I understand,” Lexa says with a slow nod. “We are people who must put the ones we lead first.”

“I’m not a leader.” She sounds stubborn, she knows—stubborn and petulant—and Lexa gives her a look that speaks to this fact.

“You may not be leading currently, Clarke, but you are a leader. It is an innate thing. If it were not…” Lexa offers a small shrug, turning back to the fire. “Things would be different.”

Clarke takes a moment to watch the shadows from the flames skirt across Lexa’s face; she looks younger like this: removed of war paint and masks of all sorts. And when she turns back to Clarke, this openness (this vulnerability) is even more evident.

“You do know, I hope, that if I were not Heda—if such things were not wholly outside of our control—I would have stayed with you. I would have fought with you.”

Had Clarke known this? She can’t be sure. It certainly feels like a truth that she should have recognized, but Lexa actually saying it forces all the air out of her lungs.

“There are many things that are beyond us, Clarke, but I hope that your forgiveness is not one of them.”

She stands, then, before Clarke is ready to comment or even process what had just occurred. She also removes Clarke’s Trial Blade from her belt and presents it, palms upwards and out.

“I need to speak more with the Chancellor. Will you think about helping us coordinate the attacks? Marching with us?”

Clarke reaches for the blade and nods, still not trusting herself to speak.

---

“What is it? A knife?”

Clarke looks up from the blade still resting in her lap and has to blink to clear the intricate lines from her vision—to keep them from overlaying across her mom’s face, ever after her gaze no longer rests on the wood.

“Just a gift.” She offers a small smile and reattaches the knife to her belt. “Everything alright?”

Her mom’s laugh is brief, but genuine when she sits down next to her. “I think that’s supposed to be my line. How are you feeling, honey?”

“Better.” She takes a deep breath in and raises her face to the sun. “A lot better.”

“The Commander said you might join us at the battle table. She’s pretty adamant that you would be helpful.”

She’s not sure what to say to that, so she just shrugs. Her mother, however, presses forward.

“She cares about you. I… didn’t know. You didn’t tell me.”

The handle of her blade presses reassuringly into her palm, the individual grooves marking the skin. Clarke occupies herself with the sight, peeling her hand back to inspect the effect.

“Does it matter?”

“It seems to matter a lot.”

There isn’t any judgment in her mom’s voice when she replies, and for that, Clarke is grateful. (It’s been so long since they talked like this—open and honest and without judgment. It’s… nice. Unexpected, but nice.)

“I guess it does. I don’t know. It’s all kind of really bad timing, isn’t it?” Clarke sighs. “And I don’t know if I’m ready. Still.”

“I don’t know that there’s ever a really good time, Clarke. Even when there isn’t PHNS and crash landings involved. Do I think it’s a good idea?” Her mom laughs. “No. But you’re my daughter. And Lexa is…”

“Covered in tattoos?”

Her mom makes a face and then it’s Clarke’s turn to join in on the laughter. It bubbles up and out of her throat and leaves her feeling just as warm as the sun.

---

They decide to make the trip back to Camp Jaha the next day. Clarke is not quite as fast or strong as she had been two weeks ago, but the burn in her legs and lungs feels good, and she doesn’t think of complaining. Still, her companions take it easy on her; both of them suddenly require a lot more breaks than Clarke remembers them needing on any journey before.

This particular stop was the result of her mother suddenly and desperately needing to fill up on water, despite Clarke’s own canteen still being half full. But they’ve just reached the top of a hill and Clarke is breathing heavy so she’s not about to argue with the sudden break, especially when her mom offers to hike to the small lake a bit of ways off their path and refill all the water skins.

Even after she’s gone, Clarke’s breath is coming heavier than she would like, and she flops back onto the grass with a sigh of relief. (Apparently, almost becoming a zombie takes something out of you.) A few minutes with her eyes closed pretending that the oncoming zombie horde of doom didn’t exist couldn’t hurt right? Not when Lexa sits down next to her, practically radiating alertness.

“You should come to Polis with me.”

Or… maybe not alertness. Clarke cracks an eye open and finds that it might be a different kind of alertness entirely; Lexa is watching intently, after all, but her gaze rests on Clarke rather than their surroundings.

“… To Polis?”

“Once the immediate threat is dealt with, of course. After we take care of the horde. I know I asked before, but… I want you to know that nothing has changed.”

“Everything’s changed,” Clarke says with a (somewhat weak) laugh.

Lexa, however, does not join in; her face remains serious, clearly intent on being understood.

“Not some things.”

No. Not some things. Because when Clarke sits up, Lexa’s eyes follow. And when she leans in, Lexa sucks in a nearly inaudible breath, but remains otherwise completely still.

“I still shouldn’t,” Clarke murmurs, watching Lexa’s eyes flick down to her lips. “There might be even more reasons now. What with the… new zombies thing.”

Still, Lexa doesn’t move forwards, but she does smile—a lopsided grin that looks completely at home on her face, despite Clarke never having seen it there before.

“You’re better. And I am immune.”

Maybe it’s the grin that does it. Or maybe it’s the easy reassurance. Either way, Clarke closes the distance between them without much more thought and… yes. There are some things that have not changed.

The way she feels when Lexa kisses her, for one.

Even when soft and somewhat tentative, it still removes everything else—every worry or inclination or thought—it all drifts slowly into the back of her mind when Lexa’s lips slide against hers. And when Clarke—very careful not to bite—licks a bit further into her mouth… well. There isn’t room for anything else at all.

Which is probably why Lexa pulls away first, looking dazed, but determined.

“I thought—I did not think you were ready.”

Lexa’s lips are wet from Clarke’s mouth, and very difficult to pull away from.

“For everything? I’m not. But I think maybe I shouldn’t let that always stop me.”

Because she’s not ready. Not at all. There are thousands of zombies coming their way, a new sort of infection, tentative pacts, and an entire Earth full of uncertainties. But maybe it’s not such a bad thing, forgetting about all that, just for a little while.

Which is why she kisses Lexa again.

Zombies be damned.