Work Text:
It was still early in the morning when two of Lexa’s guards came to get her.
Heda, they told her, wanted to see her again.
Clarke gritted her teeth but didn’t speak.
She followed the men out of the bedroom they had shoved her in two days earlier and let them lead her down a seemingly endless hallway that curved slightly to the left.
Neither of the guards touched her, but they walked watchfully one in front and the other behind her, and Clarke almost snorted.
“You’re a guest here, Clarke,” Lexa had told her the previous day. In response, Clarke had pressed a blade to her throat.
“Wait here,” one of the men told her now, showing her through a large wooden door.
It closed slowly behind her, and Clarke glanced back in time to see the two men position themselves in front of it, hands behind their back, guarding it.
She didn’t dwell on it, though.
Instead, she turned her eyes and assessed the room, which was larger than the one she’d been sleeping in for the past two nights, but not by much. The furniture was sparse, with a solid looking table on one side, and a few chairs that seemed to have seen better days.
The floor was covered in furs of different colors carefully sewed together to make a carpet.
The room had a balcony opening on one of the walls, and it made the place look airy and bright.
It was then that Clarke noticed she wasn’t alone.
A man was standing just outside what she supposed was a large window-door once, his back on her.
His clothes were different than the ones he wore the last time she saw him, but she had not trouble recognizing him.
As if on cue, he chose that moment to turn slightly and saw her.
He bowed his head in greeting, and she saw that his face was clean and his hair was pulled back and tied high on his head. The scar on his temple stood pale and evident against his tanned skin.
“Roan,” Clarke acknowledged plainly, purposely forgoing his title.
He didn’t seem bothered by it, quite the opposite in fact. His mouth twisted slightly on one side, amusement hovering just out of the corner of his lips.
“Wanheda,” he greeted with the same even tone and Clarke didn’t let the name trouble her.
Instead, she stepped on the balcony, and took in the scenery in front of her.
It was the same part of the city she could see from the wide window of her bedroom—which meant they must be on the same side of the tower—but this balcony allowed her a much larger overview of the large streets, and the beaten buildings, and the green mountains in the distance.
She had known about Polis for months at this point, but being here was still a lot to take in.
“You’ve never been to Polis,” Roan said beside her.
It wasn’t a question, but Clarke answered it anyway.
“No,” she said. And then, because she had no reasons not to, “I would have, at some point, but then things changed, and it wasn’t an option anymore.”
She could feel Roan’s eyes on her, but for some reason, it did not bother her.
She had been his prisoner, after all, and she had felt his watchful eyes on her the entire time, but she had also felt a grudging sort of respect from his part.
It wasn’t the awed admiration in Niylah’s eyes and voice, but something deeper, like he knew something about her that she herself did not.
It should have innerved her, but it didn’t.
Clarke didn’t turn to see Roan’s reaction at her answer, but a part of her wondered how much he knew about what had happened inside the Mountain.
The very thought of it, brought something painful and angry in Clarke’s chest and being here, in Polis, were Lexa was, because Lexa wanted her here, caused those feelings to clash and merge and burn in her heart.
There had been hope in Lexa’s eyes that night by the Mountain, while they waited for an assault that never came, and Clarke had felt that hope blossom and warm her, but Lexa took it back and Clarke had watched the future collapse at her feet, leaving only desperation and death in its wake.
Clarke held onto that pain, as she watched from afar the streets of Polis, bursting with life at this time of the day. A low, indistinct humming came from the ground, all sounds muffled by the height.
It felt peaceful, and for a moment, Clarke wished she could absorb that feeling and forget everything else.
“Is it anything like you imagined it?” Roan asked and pulled her from her thoughts.
“When it comes to the Ground nothing is as I imagined it,” she replied honestly with a little shrug, but her eyes remained focused on the city below them, following the line of what appeared to be one of the main streets, its path seemingly dividing Polis in two.
She followed it till the very end of the city and beyond that, her eyes finding the mountains on the background, and suddenly she ached for the quietness of the woods, for how simple life was there, how uncomplicated.
No regrets, not questions, no doubts.
Clarke could still feel Roan’s eyes on her. She waited a moment, then two. Eventually, she turned and looked at him, studying him, as he was she, curiosity and something else in his gaze.
They heard voices coming from the hallway outside the door and both turned towards it. They couldn’t make out the words, and the exchange, whatever it was about, was brief and over after just a couple of minutes.
“The second shift just started,” Roan told her, and Clarke nodded, storing the information for the future, and wondering how many times Roan had already been a guest in Polis.
It was quiet for a minute and then he spoke again.
“That boy,” he started slowly, as if this had been on his mind for a while, “the one who tried to rescue you…”
He stopped and kept looking at her, and Clarke swallowed the wave of emotion that came with his words.
She turned to look at mountains again, willing her hammering heart to slow down, but it was no use.
She had kept her worry and fear for Bellamy at bay these past two days, she had focused on her anger at Lexa, but Roan’s words had just brought everything back, the fear and the longing as powerful and breathtaking as they had been that day.
Clarke forced herself to calm down, and then turned her head to meet Roan’s gaze.
“What about him?” she asked sternly.
Roan was silent for a moment, then inclined his head towards her, moving closer.
Clarke narrowed her eyes.
“You need to be careful with that,” Roan said, voice low and serious in the clear air of the morning.
It didn’t feel like a threat, but it was a clear warning, and not for the first time Clarke wondered about Roan’s past.
She turned fully towards him, schooling her face in a cold mask, but she didn’t pretend not to understand what he was saying.
There was no point in that now.
Her pleas might have saved Bellamy’s life that day, but they had also revealed without a doubt how important he was to her.
“You worry about him more,” Lexa had said what felt like a lifetime ago, and Clarke had been able to skate over the hidden meaning behind the words and move onto another matter. She had managed to keep him safe, because even though she had send him away herself, she had meant what she’d told him on their way to Tondc.
She couldn’t lose him, not after Finn. Maybe not ever.
Clarke took a small breath and broke eye contact with Roan, closing her eyes for a moment.
She had given herself away and for that, she had berated herself all the way to Polis, but the truth is, she had not been prepared for Bellamy.
She had heard the soft, careful steps down the stairs of the old subway station, she had seen Roan glance up towards the exit and then move closer to the wall, fading back into the shadows and signaling her to be quiet.
Clarke had glared at him but at the same time, she had thought about a way to turn this new encounter to her advantage.
The intruder had come closer, and Clarke had looked around the pillar she was tied to to try and get a glimpse of them before deciding what her course of action would be.
And then they had been in front of her, and Clarke had looked up and all the words in the world could not begin to describe what she’d felt in the moment, because it was Bellamy in front of her, real and solid and-
Every rational thought had left her as Bellamy crouched in front of her, a small smile tugging at his mouth.
“Hey,” he’d whispered, moving closer and she’d breathed his name, unable to understand what was happening.
He had moved a lock of hair from her face, his fingertips hovering just over her skin and it was truly him, all tousled hair and warm eyes and smiling lips, and without meaning to Clarke had felt tears prickle behind her eyes.
She had left him, she had left all of them, and yet here he was, moving the gag from her mouth gently, reassuring her that he was going to take her out.
Only then Clarke noticed a shadow moving just out of the corner of her eye, only then she remembered, and suddenly her confused mind had caught on what was about to happen.
She had screamed a warning, but it was too late.
Bellamy was on his back, defenseless and unarmed, and Clarke had been so sure, so sure that Roan would kill him without hesitation.
If she had had more time to reconcile her brain with the reality of Bellamy being there, maybe she would have been able to come up with a better plan, with some sort of exit strategy that would save them both.
But in that moment there was nothing, nothing but the sudden knowledge that Bellamy was going to die, and she couldn’t let that happen.
She had cried, begged Roan to spare his life, and she had promised the only thing she could trade for his life.
She had given up her fight.
She had promised to go willingly.
A part of her had known then that it could be death at the hand of the Ice Nation’s Queen waiting for her the end of the journey.
Later, she had thought she could come up with a plan by then.
In that moment, though, it didn’t matter.
The only thing that mattered was that Bellamy could not die.
Please, just… not him.
When Clarke reopened her eyes now, she fixed them on the man in front of her.
Roan was watching her intently, just as he had in the old subway station after he’d knocked down Bellamy, and later, in the woods, as he led her at a steady pace, and stopped, from time to time, to listen to the whispers of the trees around them.
“Why are you warning me?” Clarke asked, cutting the tense silence between them. She felt a muscle twitch in her jaw but pressed forward, a challenge very clear in her voice. “You think your mother could do to him what she did to Costia?”
It was with a small amount of satisfaction that Clarke watched Roan’s eyes widen at that.
“Lexa told you about her,” he said, not bothering to keep the surprise out of his voice.
“Yes,” Clarke said simply, and Roan seemed to consider her for a long moment, but whatever he thought of that information, he didn’t comment on it.
“Then you know how dangerous it can be,” he said instead, darkly, voice even lower than before. “But it’s not only my mother you should be concerned about,” he continued, and the narrowing of his eyes, the pointed silence that followed, made it very what he was getting at.
A memory of Finn, tied to a post in the middle of the Grounders’ camp flashed at her, and Lexa’s inscrutable eyes glowing from the fire of the torches.
“He did it for me.”
“Then he dies for you.”
Clarke’s fingers flexed, as if they were still trying to get rid of the blood that soaked her skin that night.
Maybe they still were.
Maybe she still was, too.
But Roan was not done talking.
He moved closer, eyes boring into hers.
“It’s not just the threat of death,” he said. “You have a strong spirit. You’re not much of a warrior, but you never stopped fighting all the time I had you. You tricked me, you attacked me, you ran away, over and over and over, but you gave up for that boy. To save his life. You said you would stop fighting and you did.” He paused, assessing her for a moment. “You kept your word,” he added. “That too is a weakness your enemies will use against you.”
Roan smiled then, but it wasn’t a pretty smile.
There was pain, there, and regret.
A story that Clarke did not know yet.
“I thought honor was a good thing among your people,” she replied.
Roan shook his head and looked away.
“For some, but not in our leaders,” he said and Clarke thought about how unexpectedly Lexa had broken their alliance, taking the Mountain’s deal. She remembered her words to Roan two days ago, how because of that broken promise, he was now a prisoner in a golden cage, same as Clarke. “Leaders must be ruthless,” he continued. “They need to do whatever it takes to keep their people safe. A single life is no bother, no matter how much that life means to someone else or to themselves.”
This last part was almost a whisper and there was a darkness in Roan’s eyes that was all too familiar to Clarke.
It shadowed her mother’s eyes whenever she spoke of the past.
It had dulled Lexa’s serious gaze when she told Clarke about Costia.
Clarke knew it lived in her eyes, too.
“Why were you banished, Roan?” she asked then, blunt, tired of games and half told truths. “And why did you bring me to Lexa and not to your mother?”
It was Roan’s turn to grit his teeth, but it was clear that his rage was not aimed at her.
“The Queen would never lift my banishment. Not even for you, Wanheda, but she won’t disobey the Commander as long as Azgeda is part of the Coalition” he spat.
“According to Lexa that might not be for long,” Clarke said. “But you didn’t answer my first question.”
Roan gave her a look, but in the end, he talked. He looked down as he spoke, voice low but unwavering. “She asked something from me, and I refused to do what she asked, so she did it herself.”
Clarke recalled the rest of their conversation and understanding suddenly dawning on her.
“She asked you to kill someone,” Clarke said, surprise and sorrow mingling in her voice. “Someone you cared about.”
Roan lifted his head and finally met her gaze.
“She had me watch, and then she threw me out.”
And it was clear now, why he wanted to go home.
Not because he longed to be there, but rather because-
“I want revenge,” he said suddenly, dangerous and hard.
“You want to kill her.”
He nodded, and there was a storm in his eyes, rage burning in them just as it did in Clarke’s heart.
War was brewing, Lexa had told her two days ago, and again yesterday, when she had visited Clarke.
The Ice Nation was moving on Polis, and it was only a matter of time before the Sky People would be caught in the middle of it.
Clarke wondered if that shared rage could possibly turn Prince Roan of the Azgeda into an ally.
A knock on the door startled both of them.
Soon after, a tall woman walked into the room. “Prince Roan, the Commander will receive you now,” she said, and then bowed her head and stepped outside, not waiting for an answer.
Roan took a deep breath and walked back into the room.
Clarke watched him go, but then he paused in the middle and turned back to her.
“You have a great strength, Wanheda, I’ll give you that,” he said, “and you are far from being the broken creature you think you are. But you would do everything in your power to protect the people you love, and your will is weakened because of that.”
Clarke swallowed her surprise at the slight accusation in his voice, something that had been in his words when they were alone at the subway station as well.
Regardless, she straightened her shoulders.
“Like yours was?” she countered, and she wasn’t proud of the hurt she saw in Roan’s eyes, how his expression darkened even more, but she forged on. “Maybe we are not so different after all, Roan.”
Roan seemed to consider this for a moment. He didn’t reply, but he gave her a little nod, whether in agreement or in farewell Clarke didn’t know.
Then in two steps, he was out of the room. The door closed behind him and Clarke was left alone.
She took a deep breath and turned towards the view of Polis, but she didn’t see it.
Instead, she saw Bellamy, his body unmoving and unconscious at her feet.
She saw his eyes, wide, worried, and, just for a moment, happy.
And she thought about how happy she had been in that moment, too, almost as if she was safe with him, almost as if, just because they were together, everything was possible again.
But that had not been true for a long time now.
Clarke sighed, looking at the mountains, longing for the quietness of the woods, for the hours of stillness as she waited for her next kill.
She willed that calmness, that patience to quiet her jumbled mind.
She could not think about her people now.
She could not wonder about how they were-
Were they looking after each other, as she had hoped?
Was Jasper talking to Monty, to Bellamy?
Was Octavia still mad at her?
And Raven, how was she coping with… with everything?
Was her mother sleeping enough, eating enough?
How was Bellamy recovering from his wound?
(She refused to contemplate the possibility that he had bled out in that station. Surely, there were others with him, they had found him, and brought him back to Camp).
But how was he, really? There wasn’t time to talk, to think, two days ago, and it hurt her so much that she almost wished she had not seen him at all.
Did the nightmares woke him up in the middle of the night, like her?
Had he found someone to bear them with him?
Clarke closed her eyes, inhaling slowly and deeply.
She could not think of Bellamy, could not think about any of them.
War was coming and she must be ready for it, ready to do whatever it took. She would break what was left of her again and again, if necessary, and she would give up piece after piece of herself if it meant keeping her people, her friends, safe.
She would do it, so they would not need to.
She opened her eyes, and she held her chin high as she looked down at Polis, at the people who lived in it.
Determination set in her bones as Clarke took a breath and waited, standing straight and still in the clear air of the morning.