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Clarke had hit her head on the way to the room that was currently serving as her prison. She blinked a few times as she slipped back into consciousness and raised her hand to her temple. Pain pulsed behind her eyes. She felt a cold compress lying across her forehead and pulled it over her eyes to block the light. The side of her forehead was swollen and tender and covered in scrapes. She squeezed her eyes closed. It didn’t help.
She wished she could blame the throbbing in her head on Lexa’s guards who had dragged her here, but as she replayed the memory a few times she knew she’d done this to herself. She knew, despite her resentment of the knowledge, that the two men had been handling her as carefully as they could, considering her struggle. She knew that she had been trying to be the most troublesome thing they had to deal with all day. She knew what her own intentions had been, and she knew that if they’d wanted to deal with her more easily they could have - they were bigger than her and there were two of them.
She knew they had been ordered to be gentle with her.
Tears escaped unbidden from the corners of her eyes, sliding down the sides of her face and into her ears. She rubbed at her ears, trying to wipe the tears away. The compress slid off her face and she pulled it back, which for some reason felt like giving up, accepting the help that had been left for her. She tried not to analyze that feeling. She tried not to think of who had left this little piece of physical relief. She failed.
The bed she was lying in was comfortable. It was too comfortable. Fur grazed her bare feet and the back of her neck. She hadn’t felt fur like this since before the mountain. The memory was vague and she couldn’t quite focus on why it felt so familiar, until -
She tried not to think about that either.
Clarke’s stomach rolled with frustration at her circular thoughts. She felt sick and suddenly needed very much to be able to see her surroundings. She pulled the compress off her face violently and gulped a few deep breaths. Her heart slowed, but only slightly. Her stomach stopped churning, but remained unsettled. She stared at the ceiling and willed time to stop. The light through the window stretched across the room and emphasized the texture of the walls. It was all so still already, and she was completely out of place surrounded by it.
Lexa’s figure, silhouetted by the sun, burned on the backs of her eyelids. Lexa’s eyes, searching her face, flashed in her memory. Lexa’s hands, gently removing the gag Roan had tied, left ghosts of contact on Clarke’s cheeks. Lexa’s voice, growling over Clarke’s wounds, softly apologizing, echoed deafeningly in her thoughts.
Lexa’s face, recoiling at Clarke’s outburst, turning away, and turning back with features of stone and barely glistening eyes to receive the onslaught of insults, drifted into focus. At the time it had been a blur. But as she remembered it, Clarke could picture one thing vividly: green eyes, looking straight at her, which is remarkable because Lexa spends her life looking down on everyone, and Clarke can think of only one instance when Lexa looked up at someone. Clarke happened to have been the only person present to see it.
Clarke rolled onto her side and curled her body around her knees. She adjusted the compress gently on the side of her forehead, stared at the wall and squeezed the fur into her fist. It was all too much. Suddenly she didn’t need to know where she was. She didn’t want to look out the window. She didn't care whether she was being imprisoned or protected.
Numbness spread through Clarke slowly as her breathing became shallower. Her head fell forward and faintly she could smell something familiar and comforting in the fur beneath her. She let it soothe her to sleep, and refused for just this moment to let her anger stop her from knowing what she wanted and what she could forgive and what required no forgiveness at all, but understanding.