Work Text:
I.
The smell of decay assails her first, before the sea of bodies scattered in the valley outside her people’s lands. They look at one another, afraid to speak, and ride onward, to investigate what has happened. Clarke already knows the answer, even if the pieces have yet to fall exactly into place. The evidence is too much to ignore.
Bullet wounds. There is only one clan that could be responsible for this—hers.
“Queen Nia caused this,” Lexa says, but the words are hollow on her tongue. They both know the difference between bullet holes and stab wounds and the truth of the matter is that only the Sky people have enough ammunition to pull something like this off. “She wanted to destabilize the clans. It seems her plans haunt me even in death.”
“I don’t understand.” Clarke whispers as her eyes scan the battlefield. Her stomach drops as she takes in the scene, hoping against hope that Raven hadn’t been involved—but with this level of destruction it’s a possibility. “Kane wouldn’t do this.”
“We will get to the bottom of this. Together.”
“You can’t promise me that—the other clans still want you dead.” The words tumble past her lips before she can stop them and Clarke catches the momentary hurt in Lexa’s eyes before it’s buried beneath the war paint. But they’ve never pulled punches with one another before and she can’t start now. Not when they’re likely to be on opposite sides of yet another war.
“I am Heda. None will dare to challenge my authority so soon.”
“Yes, but this is an act of war. My people—“
“We don’t know for certain that this was your people, Clarke,” Lexa interrupts and she furrows her brow, wondering how it’s possible that Lexa can believe that with all these bodies and bits of shrapnel lying dead at their feet. “We will discuss next steps later, first we must tend to the wounded and try to understand what has happened.”
“I’ll go. You need to find Indra.”
“Clarke,” Lexa starts, ready to argue and Clarke shakes her head. It’s hard enough to face the enormity of what has happened on her own, knowing that Lexa is safe outside the walls of Arkadia, but she can’t allow her to come inside. The people who caused this are there, likely still eager for more destruction no matter the cost.
Lexa’s hand brushes hers, and Clarke meets her gaze. “Once you get the answers you need, we will return to Polis. We will meet at sundown. I will not leave you again.”
II.
“Clarke!” Abby shouts, throwing her off-guard as she enters the camp. “You’re injured. Let’s get you to medical.”
Clarke catches on immediately, feigning a limp as she slides off her horse and hands the reins to Kane, the only friendly face amongst a sea of sky people that she barely recognizes anymore. His face is somber as he touches her shoulder, and she knows that he had nothing to do with the destruction outside the gates.
She drapes an arm around her mother’s shoulder and says nothing as they hobble through the crowd, aware of the need for discretion. They weave through crowds and then metal hallways before arriving in an empty examination room, away from prying eyes.
Her mother reaches out, desperately trying to cup her cheeks and Clarke backs away from her embrace. She ignores the look of disappointment that flickers across her face. It’s not the first time she’s disappointed her mom, and it certainly won’t be the last. “Mom! What happened?”
“There was an election. It didn’t go the way we expected.” She answers, running her palms up and down her thighs the way she always does when she’s nervous.
“What do you mean? Kane has the brand,” Clarke asks, brows furrowed. She hadn't asked too many questions about the election, assuming it was all worked out between her and Kane. “Who’s the chancellor?”
“Charles Pike. He, and his people, did this.”
“His people? What?”
“Farm Station,” Abby clarifies and Clarke frowns. From what little she’d learned of Farm Station, they aren’t aware of how things work on the ground—they’d landed in Ice Nation territory, fighting for their lives for months on end. “They were angry after what happened at Mount Weather.”
“That doesn’t justify killing three hundred of Lexa’s warriors.”
“Marcus and I know that. We tried, but we couldn’t stop it,” Abby sighs, wiping a hand across her brow. Clarke stares at her in disbelief, choking back a sob as she tries to put a million pieces together and fails, miserably. There is no explanation for this—none that makes sense.
Her mother wraps her arms around her and Clarke leans in greedily. Her mask slips against Abby’s chest and Clarke allows herself all of five seconds to grieve. This is not the peace that she’d worked so hard to give her people. Hell, she’d commanded death in order to give peace to the people of the Ark—and somehow her people had managed to use death to bring them all to ruin.
“I should have been here. This is my fault.” Clarke admits, batting away her tears, face firmly set back into place, emotionless and shut off from the world.
You were born for this, same as me. Lexa’s words come to her unbidden and once more she wishes that this weren’t true—the crown is too heavy and every time she thinks she has found some semblance of solid ground, someone is there to knock her back into the muck and the mire.
“This is not your fault, Clarke,” Abby insists, loud and forceful. Given all the times that her mother has criticized her decisions, she’s almost willing to believe her, but Clarke can’t allow herself the absolution that her mother offers her.
“I could have stopped it.“
“No, you couldn’t have. Those people—they have no idea how things work on the ground. But you might be able to fix it.”
“How? Three hundred people are dead.”
“You have to try,” Abby pleads and Clarke swallows the thought that perhaps the perpetrators don’t deserve to be saved. “See if there is anything we can do to prevent retaliation?”
Clarke sighs and finally nods her head, knowing it’s the answer her mother needs, if not the one that is likely. This is an act of war, and blood must have blood. At least now she knows something about the leader, someone she can offer to Lexa—and while Earth Skills might have been valuable, once, diplomacy is more important to their immediate survival.
III.
Clarke finds Bellamy in the aftermath of Octavia’s admission of his participation in the slaughter. His eyes greet her with something almost like relief and she freezes at the realization that it’s not unlike the way Finn had looked, after murdering eighteen people.
What Bellamy’s done is infinitely worse—they hadn’t known then what they knew now, and he’d been there when the arrangements had been made and accepted for a peace keeping force. There is no justifying what Bellamy has done.
“Please tell me that Octavia’s wrong. That you didn’t do this.” Clarke says, not bothering with pleasantries.
He turns to meet her, his face bloodied and lip split. Although he looks like shit, Bellamy faces her, unapologetic and convinced that what he’s done is right. She feels like she’s been rocketed back to when they’d first landed, before they’d managed to work together. “I did what I thought was best—“
“You can’t believe that, Bellamy,” Clarke interrupts, the disbelief evident in her tone.
“They destroyed Mount Weather.” Bellamy responds, as if that makes sense and Clarke slams her fists into the table, causing him to jump.
“Azgeda destroyed Mount Weather. Not the coalition.”
Bellamy sighs, as if he’s lecturing a child. “They were outside our gates. They’d have attacked eventually, so we sent a message.”
“No, you started a war. One we can’t win,” Clarke spits, not in the mood for his condescension, especially when he is wrong about this.
“What did you expect me to do? Nothing? Forty-nine of our people are dead!“
“And more of them are going to die because of you!” Clarke shouts, the accusation reverberating off the walls and forcing Bellamy’s lips to turn firmly downward into a scowl.
“You weren’t here, Clarke. You don’t know what it’s like, dealing with people dying on my watch—“
“I don’t know what it’s like? Really? I burned three hundred grounders outside the drop ship. I let TonDC burn to the ground. And I irradiated Mount Weather. Or have you forgotten?” Clarke asks, advancing on him like a predator stalking her prey. Bellamy takes a step backward, into the wall and she can sense the fear slipping out from underneath his false bravado. “The grounders certainly haven’t. They call me Wanheda. The Commander of Death.”
His eyes meet hers and he lets out a growl, shoving her off of him. “That’s bullshit Clarke. We took down Mount Weather for our people. Together.”
“No, Bellamy. You pulled the lever for Octavia. I pulled it for our people.” Clarke pauses, raking a hand through her hair as she steps forward, anger still coursing wildly through her veins. “Everything I do is for our people. You can’t say the same. So why did you do it?”
“I told you. The grounders murdered forty-nine of our people.”
“So you went and killed three hundred of our allies? Our friends?”
“They’re not our friends,” Bellamy snaps and Clarke clenches her fist, grinding her teeth together as she steels her features. She chokes down the accusation that he isn’t a good judge of character, considering his Ice Nation friend disrupting the summit.
“Lincoln’s missing.” Clarke says instead, relaying what Octavia had told her just moments ago. “He could be dead.”
Her stomach flips at her words, the truth of them gnawing a hole into her gut. Lincoln, their first ally on the ground and their most loyal supporter—likely dead because of misplaced anger and ignorance.
Clarke forces down the tears that threaten to spill, taking notice of the pained look on Bellamy’s face as she does. He steps forward as if to seek solace from her, and she moves away. There is nothing for her to give him—there will be no forgiveness, here.
“Clarke,” he pleads, pathetic and broken, on the verge of tears. He looks at her like a drowning man clinging to his last bit of air and it only serves to incense her further. “Please.”
He reaches for her, his calloused hand making contact with her shoulder, and she stiffens against the unwelcome contact. She shrugs him off violently, her blue eyes wild with barely-restrained fury.
You left a hero to your people. And you return one.
Not that it matters, in the end. Bellamy had known better and yet he still expects her to make this okay—but he isn’t Finn and she isn’t blinded by love this time around. He made his decision and her misguided faith in him had put her, and her people, at risk.
“Don’t,” she spits, glaring at him as she walks away. It’s almost sundown and while Clarke has the answers she needs to tell Lexa what has happened, none of them are the ones she wants.
War is coming and while that is not new, this feeling of helplessness is; Clarke truly feels out of options—likely because this time, she has no answer other than the truth.
Her people are at fault.