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“What does your Timer say?” Finn murmured, lifting his eyebrow as he glanced at the blonde haired woman’s concealed wrist.
“Nine hundred and thirty-five hours.” Clarke answered with a shrug of her shoulders. “Maybe it’s broken.”
Finn nodded his head and bit his lip. “Maybe,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders as he closed his fingers around his own wrist concealing the zero digits displayed clearly on his skin, “it’s not the first time the Timers haven’t worked out on the Ark.”
~
“Raven,” Finn whispered, his voice breathless and surprised, and his eyes blown wide in confusion.
Clarke felt her heart crack in her chest when her eyes caught sight of Raven’s wrist, and the zero’s strewn across the woman’s flesh.
The blonde haired woman peered at the numbers etched into her wrist—six hundred and seventy-two hours—remained on her Timer.
~
Clarke let her fingertips trace the numbers on her skin in the final quiet moments before the attack.
Two hundred and thirty-three hours remained to tick by, but Clarke knew that the remaining numbers did not guarantee her life, she had seen people die with hundreds of hours left on their countdowns.
~
“Twenty-four hours,” Clarke muttered, biting the inside of her cheek as she brushed the tip of her finger across the inky black numbers. “Twenty-hours lost in this room.”
Anger and rage pounded through Clarke’s nerve endings and burned in the pit of her stomach.
~
Clarke felt hope and desperation bubble up her throat as she glanced down into Anya’s soft but haunted brown eyes. “Anya,” she breathed the woman’s name as a prayer from her lips and felt her heart lurch in her chest.
One hundred and ninety hours remained burned into her skin, but Clarke couldn’t think passed the metal cage around Anya, and the weight of the Mountain on her shoulders.
“Come on,” Clarke hissed, tugging at the cage’s lock. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
~
Clarke brushed the tips of her fingers across her wrist as she waited for her Mother to finish binding the wounds littered across her body.
“You look like you’ve been in a warzone.” Abby muttered, tying off a bandage around Clarke’s bicep, ignoring the way that the white cotton stained red immediately.
“I was,” Clarke answered, her eyes flickering away from the numbers—one hundred and sixty-seven—to meet her Mother’s gaze. “I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m still alive.”
~
“I found you…” Finn’s words were breathless and quiet, but they rang thunderously loud in Clarke’s ears.
Her heart throbbed in her chest, and her lungs ached. “No,” she whispered—whimpered—wept.
One hundred and nineteen hours remained, but Clarke’s heart had shattered already.
~
“If you so much as look at her the wrong way I will slit your throat.”
The man’s words reverberated through Clarke’s skull as she stepped forward into the Commander’s tent.
The blonde haired woman let her eyes flick over the contents of the tent before shifting to stare directly at the woman on the throne. Her wrist burned, fire rippled across her flesh, but she kept her gaze steady.
“You’re the one that burned three hundred of my warriors alive.” The woman said, her eyebrows lifted but her eyes narrowed.
“You’re the one that sent them there to kill us.” Clarke answered.
The fire spread across Clarke’s forearm, the numbers of her Timer shifting and rearranging themselves, forming letters in the place of digits. Clarke grit her teeth against the pain and brought her arm up to rub her fingers across the branded skin.
“You…” The woman on the throne whispered, her voice choked in pain and surprise.
Clarke blinked, lifting her eyes to peer at the other woman, and watched as she rolled up the sleeve of her jacket to display the words forming on her skin.
“You…” Clarke whispered, blinking in disbelief.
~
“Come to bed,” Clarke whispered as she brushed her fingers across a dark haired woman’s shoulders. “There will be time for plans in the morning.”
“You say that now Klark,” the woman said with a shake of her head and a laugh. “Yet, I foresee being asked to remain in bed tomorrow morning.”
“Ai houmon,” Clarke laughed, “it is no one’s fault but your own if I am demanding in the morning Leksa.”
“Yu fulop kom ai yongon Klark,” Lexa said, turning her head to press her lips to Clarke’s cheek, her kiss soft and gentle. “You can demand anything of me.”
“Jok ai Leksa,” Clarke husked into the shell of Lexa’s ear, brushing her lips across the woman’s tanned skin, before she stepped backward toward the bed. “Now.”
“Sha, ai niron.” Lexa breathed out in reply before following Clarke to their shared bed.