Chapter Text
Polis, Nightfall
And then a gun went off.
The sound tore through the room like a storm through a quiet forest.
Lexa staggered, her body jolting as the bullet struck—not center mass, but high, near the shoulder. She collapsed hard against the stone floor with a grunt of pain.
“Lexa!” Clarke screamed, her lungs emptied of air as she dropped to her knees.
She could hear the blood roaring in her ears.
Blood. So much of it. Spreading fast beneath her.
But Lexa was still breathing.
Titus, across the room, looked as horrified as if he’d just murdered a god. “No… no, no—” The gun clattered from his hands.
Clarke didn’t care. She pressed her hands to the wound, trying to stop the flow. “Stay with me. Stay with me, Lexa.”
Lexa’s eyes fluttered open—unfocused, but present. “Clarke…”
“You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.” Clarke’s voice broke at the last word. She didn’t realize she was crying until a tear slipped from her cheek and landed in Lexa’s hair.
Footsteps thundered into the room—guards, healers, chaos.
Titus dropped to his knees beside her, wild with guilt. “I didn’t mean—It was for the Flame—she wasn’t meant to—”
“Don’t speak to me.” Clarke didn’t look at him. She couldn’t.
The guards gently pulled Clarke back as the healers took over. She fought them at first—her hands soaked in Lexa’s blood—but finally let herself be pulled away, her eyes never leaving the woman on the floor.
Hours Later
The candlelight in the healer’s chamber flickered like nerves in Clarke’s chest.
She stood in the corner, arms crossed tightly across her body. Her hair was matted with sweat. Her hands still smelled like iron.
Lexa had survived the surgery. The bullet had missed her lung by inches. A clean wound, they’d said. She would live.
But the weight of almost losing her sat like lead in Clarke’s stomach.
Indra entered quietly. “She’s awake.”
Clarke didn’t wait. She moved through the dark halls like her feet knew the way better than her mind could.
Lexa’s Recovery Room
Lexa was sitting up—barely—propped up by pillows, her skin pale but her eyes alert. A fresh bandage wrapped her upper chest and shoulder, stark white against her warm skin.
Clarke stood in the doorway, her breath catching.
Lexa turned her head. “You stayed.”
“Of course I did.” Clarke stepped forward slowly. “You almost died.”
“I didn’t.”
Clarke looked down. “I thought I was going to lose you again. And this time I wouldn’t even get to be angry.”
That made Lexa’s lips twitch, just faintly. “You do hold onto your anger well.”
“I do a lot of things well,” Clarke said, her voice low—and suddenly the room was too quiet. Too charged.
Lexa looked at her for a long moment. “You saved me.”
Clarke shook her head. “No. The healers did.”
“I meant before that,” Lexa said. “You made me believe peace was worth surviving for.”
That stopped Clarke cold.
Because she had seen the look in Lexa’s eyes earlier that night —before the shot. A kind of tiredness. A readiness to go down with her ideals, if it came to that.
“You’re not allowed to die for peace,” Clarke whispered. “You’re supposed to live for it.”
Lexa nodded, and in the quiet that followed, Clarke sat down beside her.
She reached for her hand.
Lexa’s fingers curled around hers, weak but steady, and when their eyes met, something unspoken passed between them—familiar, steady, and warm.