Chapter Text
Clarke
is
so
angry.
She walks until her feet bleed and her legs fold beneath her. Something skitters behind her but it's dark enough that she can only see a few feet in each direction. Clarke isn't afraid. She presses her cheek to the cool soil and wonders just how long it would take for the earth to swallow her completely; roots to grow from her veins and poison the ground the same as everything else she touches.
Clarke weaves her fingers through the dead leaves and watches as they crumble apart. A rock is cutting into her cheek and her muscles are strained from exhaustion but Clarke doesn't care. She closes her eyes, listens to the leaves crunch in her fist, and waits for the prowling, skittering thing to finally come to eat her up.
Would it be a relief at this point? Clarke doesn't really know.
Her father used to tell her stories about the ground. They were tired tales, told time and time again throughout the Ark by everyone before they rested their heads on flattened pillows and worn sheets. It was a prayer Clarke realized when she was alone in solitary and her father was floating outside her room, unable to repeat the legends. It was a prayer, a prayer to the ground, we will return to act out our fables one day.
She wishes it had been that easy.
Clarke remembers one of the stories: there was a girl with a hood red as blood traveling through the woods. She smiled at the smell of pine on the wind and the feeling of water splashing at her wrists when she stopped at the river for a drink. There was also a wolf in the forest, ravenous and wild as it followed the human in the shadows between the trees. I'm going to gobble her up, it confessed to the plants and licked its chops.
But it didn't, her father told her. The girl found the Woodsman and he split the wolf tail to snout. The girl laughed and pressed a kiss to her hero's cheek before she made a new hood from its fur. She danced in the woods and all was well.
No, no -
That's wrong.
Clarke knows better now.
She makes up a new story: there was a girl with a hood red as blood traveling through the woods. She smiled at the feeling of sun on her skin and the chirp of birds in the trees when she finally dug her toes into the soil. But there was also a wolf, bloodthirsty and rabid when it nipped at the girls heels. I'm going to gobble you up, it confessed as its jaws snapped around the girls neck.
Wait.
Strike that.
There was a girl with a hood red as blood traveling through the woods. She screamed when the ground ate her up -
No.
There was a girl drowning in blood -
Stop it. Stop it.
There was never a girl, only a wolf.
Clarke sings.
She walks and sings all the songs she knows. She lets the melodies pour from her lungs and thinks back to the duets she would perform with Wells for their parents when they were young. They were terrible, of course, but that never stopped them.
Clarke sings and feels her knife tear into flesh easily. Atom chokes something and Bellamy won't look away. Clarke tries to rip the songs from her head then, tries to bloodily strip them out and leave them to dry in the sun. Clarke is tired of all the dead humming along.
She sings until her throat is raw and her voice is silent. She sings because if she stops Clarke just might curl up on the ground and sob until the end of her days. She doesn't know what she would cry for first.
"Just one more," Wells says to her when her voice cracks and knees tremble. She hasn't eaten anything in days and she has drank little from the ponds and streams she crossed. "One more," he says, and grins like she remembers.
Clarke nods. Anything for the dead.
Clarke
can't
get
them
out.
Who was she before the war?
Before she radiated level five and felt something tight uncoil from around her spine. Before she couldn't look away as Lexa twisted and twisted the knife buried deep. Before she let a missile bury itself in Tondc and before she tore open Finn's insides with the knife slipped cold against her wrist. Before she burned men and breathed relief because her people were broken but alive as the walked over the bones of the those Clarke had killed. Before she was dropped from the sky and before she screamed at the walls in her cell. Before, before, before -
Who was she?
Clarke has no idea anymore.
"You know you had to do it, right?" Wells tells her one time. He had been humming under his breath just a minute before, looking to the tops of the trees where a couple birds took flight with a squawk. Clarke doesn't know why he is the one to join her, why it isn't Finn or Atom or Fox or any of those other dead kids.
"What?" Clarke asks, taking care to avoid the thick roots that spew from the ground. She presses her hand to the trunk of a tree and glances to to see Wells following her.
Wells looks back with his rotting eyes. "Mount Weather," he explains, "you had to stop them."
Clarke takes a shaky breath. "Wells - "
"They gave you no choice," he says. His fingers find her arm, pulling her to a stop.
Clarke looks down to where he is gently stroking inside of her wrist with his thumb. He is still missing two fingers, bloody stumps where they should be that streak her skin red when he moves his hand slowly. She bites her lip. "You're not real," she says, shaking her head. "You're just my subconscious trying to justify my actions."
"That doesn't mean I'm any less real to you," he reasons. He is grinning at her again and - Clarke looks away. "Clarke, you had to kill them. They gave you no choice. You know our people come first."
Clarke pulls her arm from his grip and turns to continue walking across the uneven ground. Her wrists are still stained with dried blood when she murmurs, "The real Wells would have never said that."
He is gone by the time she glances over her shoulder again.
Wells was a good, good kid.
Clarke is glad he wasn't alive long enough to realize she isn't.
She can count all her ribs easily, the bones jutting against skin as Clarke traces her fingers over them. At this rate she doubts she will last much longer than two weeks. The thought should frighten her, should send her running back to Camp Jaha and the hot meals waiting, but Clarke feels as empty as her stomach.
"You're going to die out here if you keep it up," Wells says to her. She ignores him.
Clarke was used to going hungry on the Ark but this is something new. For the first few days all she could think of was the squared nutrition packs they used to slide into her cell and how many people she would be willing to kill for just a little taste. That's all she wanted, a simple taste of the bland stuff, just enough to fill her belly.
She chews on handfuls of snow now, trying to quench the hunger that leaves her empty and hallow. Wells helps her when she stumbles and keeps her awake when her eyes drift close. His presence would almost be reassuring if Clarke didn't know that it meant that she was quickly losing grasp of reality. Clarke hasn't felt this unhinged since she was locked in that tiny room, left only with a bit of charcoal and her father floating outside the walls. She could hear him bang, bang, bang against the metal and she had done anything to cover the noise.
Clarke never thought she would miss it.
It's too quiet now. The birds have all flown south for winter and the snow muffles the sound of anything else. Wells hums for her but it is hard to enjoy a dead man's song.
Clarke is just -
"I'm tired," she tells Wells. He is holding her upright, a hand at her hip and the other under her arm. His chest rumbles in agreement and the stumps of his fingers burn on her skin. "I'm so tired," she says but she does not stop.
She doesn't know how.
"Tell me a story," Wells whispers when her head lolls.
Clarke strains to crack an eye open and sees him perched on his heels in front of her. His rotten mouth pulls into a grin, that stupidly charming grin he used to give her after he found her during one of their many games of hide and seek in the crevices of the Ark when they were younger. Clarke throws a handful of snow at him.
"Let me sleep," she says while he squawks when the wet snow splats against his face, sliding beneath his collar. A grin tugs at the corners of her lips. Her eyes slide close for a moment before he taps her knee.
"Come on, Griffin," he says, pinching skin gently. "Humor a dead boy."
"Don't call yourself that," Clarke responds, then bites her tongue. He is simply acknowledging a painful truth.
Wells shifts closer and yanks her hands. "Clarke."
"Will you shut up if I do?" she asks gruffly.
Wells nods, settling before her and moving his fingers across his lips in a sign of silence. She pushes herself up on a trembling arm until her back is against the trunk of a tree.
"Once upon a time there was a girl," Clarke starts, "This girl was slowly dying and wanted nothing more than to sleep. She settled at the base of a large oak tree to get some shut eye but the ghost of her best friend wouldn't shut the fuck up."
"Hey!" Wells looks affronted, a grimace pulling across his face.
"After she finally died, she found him in the afterlife and beat him over the head with his favorite copy of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The end," she deadpans before spluttering after he drops a scoop of snow on her head. It falls coldly down the front of her shirt. She glares at him.
"That was terrible," he says. He moves to sit beside her and flicks a little of the wet stuff from her shoulder. "Stick to drawing. Your storytelling is awful."
Clarke snorts and lets her head fall onto the hard of his shoulder. "That was your job, remember?"
Wells laughs a little and nods. Clarke shifts to look at him carefully. He looks handsome with his face softly lighted by fire, humming something she vaguely remembers from when they were little. Clarke swallows tightly. She is terribly sorry she took him for granted.
"I miss you," she confesses quietly.
Wells nudges her knee with his own. "I know."
Clarke doesn't let herself cry.
Clarke collapses in the snow and can't push herself back up.
oh, she thinks, so this is how I go.
It is not unpleasant and, well. Clarke knows how this is to end. She will settle under snow and ice and sleep until her toes have gone numb, her lips turned blue. Clarke smiles. It certainly sounds appealing.
Wells isn't here to stroke her hair and sing in that soft voice that has journeyed with her thus far. It would be nice letting him sing her to sleep like she has for so many others, but Clarke isn't too worried. She will see him again soon enough.
So, this is how.
Clarke sleeps.
Clarke
is
so
-
Clarke blinks at the patch of bare wall. She rolls a small piece of charcoal between her fingers and listens to the dead crowd around her. You could draw fire, one says, then another, you could draw clouds.
Clouds. Huh.
She touches the cool surface for a moment before casting long streaks of black. She smooths her thumb over them carefully, smearing the edges and softening lines. She will make the most of this dream.
(She wonders. She wonders, she wonders, she wonders, she wonders, she - is it really a dream? Or is she still in this box? Is she still screaming at the walls? Are her hands still stained with blood and charcoal as she rocks back and forth? Is she so broken she has decided to make this hell she lives her new reality? Is she standing in an airlock watching her mother press a warm palm to glass and mouth the words I love you over and over and over and - )
The Ark groans loudly, startling her, and Clarke turns to the door of her cell. She waits for men to come tie her wrists together and drag her from the room and to the empty airlock that waits for her. Clarke draws on borrowed time, she knows that and will not delude herself in thinking otherwise. But no one comes and the Ark spins on.
Clarke turns to her drawing then stops. The cloud mushrooms upward and Clarke realizes she has drawn the dead that surround her screaming beneath it. Clarke feels bile crawling up her throat.
"You waste your energy."
Clarke turns her head to the left to see Lexa looking her over, one hand tucked under her chin. The charcoal drops between her fingers and Clarke takes a muted step back.
"These clouds have long since blown away," she says gently before she reaches to scrub a palm at Clarke's drawing. It is a mess of black by the time she is done and Lexa carefully paints the residue across her eyes. She presses her lips together and trails her fingers down her cheeks.
Clarke feels her breath hitch.
"Lexa," she chokes. Her knees hit the edge of her cot and she sways dangerously. "You're not supposed to be here."
Wasn't that the point of solitary? To be alone with ghosts banging against the walls and crawling under her skin. Lexa is open air and soil, not this tiny confined place.
Lexa hums an agreement and turns her attention to another of Clarke's illustrations. The ship looks out of place, surrounded by the death and destruction Clarke has wrecked. Clarke had drawn it with the taste of salt on her lips after her father whispered a prayer of the sea and all the creatures it contained.
"This is very good," Lexa says, her head cocked as she studies the gentle curl of sails. She leans closer and gently runs a finger along the bow, pulling away only when it starts to smear the image. She hums in discontent with the ruin she has left before she turns back to Clarke. "You are very good," she says softly.
Clarke doesn't respond. Her hands are clenched at her sides and her spine is straightened to its fullest height. Lexa looks her over and takes a loud careful step that echos in the tiny space. Clarke winces.
"Clarke," Lexa says. Her mouth is upturned at the corners, the barest of grins adorning her face. It looks lovely.
Clarke swallows and turns away. Her father taps reassurances from outside that make Clarke's eyes burn. "What do you want, Lexa?" she asks.
"You."
"Is that a threat," Clarke says, a grimace slipping on her face, "or a confession?"
Lexa steps again. Her father taps. "Both."
"You were going to let me die," Clarke accuses, licking her lips. Lexa is close enough now that Clarke thinks she could count her eyelashes, all tangled and fluttering. Lexa looks at Clarke's mouth, her hand pressed against Clarke's side carefully. A sigh slips from her lips when Clarke does not pull back.
"Yes," Lexa answers. Their noses bump.
Clarke swallows once, and whispers into the space of Lexa's mouth, "You don't get me."
I don't get you.
She lets Lexa kiss her, all gentle sighs and warm fingers at the skin of her hip. They crawl up her ribcage, taking Clarke's shirt with them and depositing it deftly on the cold metal floor. Clarke shivers and runs her tongue along the back of Lexa's teeth, swallowing the whimper Lexa gives.
Her fingers expertly pull at the clasps of Lexa's robe, the heavy material echoing as Clarke pushes it off Lexa's shoulders and falls the floor. Clarke's heart is pounding in her palms and it is enough to distract her from the how very wrong this moment tastes.
Lexa works her mouth across Clarke's jaw before nipping at the skin of her throat while Clarke tugs at the buckle of Lexa's pants. She manages to get them unzipped before Lexa is gently tugging her down.
Clarke flinches at the cold, settling on the ground and letting charcoal dye her hair, smear on her skin. Lexa shifts to her knees between Clarke's legs, a hand coming up around her throat. Clarke hums into the kiss and scratches at Lexa's back.
"Clarke," Lexa says simply, and then nothing more.
Her fingers tangle in Lexa's hair, getting suck on braids and snarls. She slowly hooks a calf over the back of Lexa's thighs and moans when Lexa presses down. Clarke does not deserve this moment of peace, but it quiets the dead in her head and Clarke is selfish enough to take it.
Lexa brushes a thumb along the curve of her jaw before she leans back enough to hover over Clarke carefully. "I do care, Clarke," she murmurs, her hands curling tight around Clarke's throat.
Clarke blinks.
oh. oh.
"Lex - " she wheezes, her hands coming up to tear at Lexa's grip.
Her father bang, bang, bangs, but Clarke cannot scream back.
Lexa's gaze does not waver as she squeezes, her mouth set in a hard line. Clarke chokes and tries to slap Lexa away but Wells is there, grabbing her wrist gently and tugging it to his side.
"No, Clarke," Wells soothes, his hand brushing strands of hair from her face. He paints blood across the hallow of her cheeks, anointing her with iron and death. "It's alright. You're alright."
Clarke feels her arm drop from his grip, falling limply at her side. The world is narrowing to a spot above Lexa's head and - oh. oh, so this is how I go.
"Yo gonplei ste odon," Lexa says lowly.
Clarke's eyes flutter shut. She wishes it could be that easy.