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if i gotta go first, i’ll do it on my terms (you’re gonna lose what you love the most)
.
i’m tired of traitors always changing sides / they were friends of mine / don’t hang around when the promise breaks / or you’ll be there when the next one’s made / we’ll welcome the new age covered in war paint / you’re not alone in anything / you’re not alone in trying to be
—bright eyes, ‘ladder song’
//
On her twenty-third birthday, Lexa tells you that the average life span of commanders is twenty-four years, one month, and seventeen days.
//
You spend your time between Polis and Camp Jaha, which is growing steadily. Bellamy and your mother and Raven, in a lot of ways, are competent as a group of leaders, and your people still respect Kane. The union you have with Lexa—whatever that means, because you’re not married in Arker society, or even engaged, but you’re pretty sure you’ve gone through some bonding ceremony in grounder society, although it’s not really like marriage—is respected by everyone.
But still—there is the Ice Nation, and Costia, you think, was just the beginning.
//
You’ve long since pardoned her for her choice, because, at the end of the day, you made the same one.
//
Sometimes, on rare days, you fuck her like you haven’t.
She lets you; she cries afterward, every time, and you hold her, whisper reassurances in her ear, smooth her long, sweet-smelling hair. You know every inch of her body—her scars and tattoos and the smooth unmarked skin between, the precious marrow in her bones.
You love them, and you tell her this.
It’s not a zero sum, and you both know that. But this world you live in is a complex one, a heartbreaking one, so you cling to each other because love is not weakness but it isn’t anything else either.
You tell her you’re in love with her, that she is so very human, until the sun rises—and in this, you tell yourself too.
//
It had taken Raven four whiskeys and one good sucker punch four years ago to accept Lexa. Or, really, those things and the next morning, when Lexa brought her a really great grounder hangover cure and sported a nasty black eye.
Raven had smiled, just a little, and Lexa had nodded. They’re both important to you and this alliance can save your people; besides, everyone understands that victory lies on the back of sacrifice.
//
“Are you scared?”
Lexa rolls over in the dark so that she can face you. Her eyes are very green. “Of what?”
That you, on average, won’t make it much past your next birthday.
That you are going to die young and exquisite and a hero.
That your hands have never belonged to you.
Lexa smiles sadly and leans forward to kiss you gently. “I was ready to die until I met you, Clarke.”
You don’t allow yourself to cry.
“I will never be afraid of death, that is not the right word. But—unwilling? Yes. I do not want to leave you.”
You press your forehead against hers; you suppose your life expectancy probably isn’t much different. “Good,” you say. “Don’t.”
//
“But this custom makes no sense, Clarke.”
Lexa looks very confused, and you would be mortified if you were in front of anyone else, but instead she has dirt smudged across her nose and a light tunic on; it’s summer, and, even with all of your respective duties, sometimes you manage to sneak away for hazy evenings together in a meadow outside of Polis you’d happened upon years earlier.
You’re kneeling down in front of where she’s standing, holding out a simple gold band Raven had helped you make.
“I know,” you say, and she looks even more lost. “But it’s a thing for Sky People, and—I want to spend my life with you.”
“Wait,” she says, then kneels down with you, which makes you laugh, “you are saying that—if you give me this ring and I take it, we say things later and then are bound for life?”
“That’s the gist.”
“Why do you have this custom?”
You sigh. “It’s a lot of patriarchal history, Lexa. But I don’t mean it like that, I just—I want you to wear it. A gift from me, if nothing else.”
Her eyes soften in understanding, because her twenty-fourth birthday is in a week.
“Okay,” she says and holds out her hand.
You slip the ring on her thin finger, the hand you know as well as your own, calloused and so gentle. “We don’t have to get married if you don’t want to.”
She shrugs. “We can. If it matters to you, Clarke, I don’t mind it.”
You scoot forward and kiss her. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”
She laughs a little into your mouth. “I find this funny only because in my culture we have been bound for two years now.”
You remember a slightly drunken night reciting some things in Trigedasleng in front of a sort of official-looking elder woman who was apparently from Lexa’s original tribe, and the Lexa leading you—laughing—through a complicated dance. “I sort of figured,” you say.
She grins. “It is not like this marriage, though.”
“It’s kind of stupid,” you say, “and antiquated.”
“It matters to you, Clarke,” she says, “so—I will marry you.”
She’s so earnest and serious like always, your love this precious breath of a thing to her. Sometimes it still floors you.
“Thank you, Lexa,” you say.
She gives one of her gentle nods and kisses you again.
//
Octavia marries you ten days later, three days after Lexa turns twenty-four. It’s a simple, quick affair, but your mother smiles and you manage to toss the bouquet straight at Raven. Lexa looks nervous and determined the whole time—she’s worked hard to gain back the trust of your people, and she doesn’t want to mess up any customs—but it’s not difficult. She promises her life to you in her quiet, clipped English, almost whispers it.
Lexa isn’t doing this for ceremony or officiation or show: she’s marrying you because she loves you.
“So,” you say, leading Lexa back to your small house after you’ve had a fair amount of champagne—Monty had figured out how to make it a while ago—“there’s this thing called your wedding night.”
Lexa blinks three times before a little smirk lights up her face.
You close the door and then press her back up against it, stand up on your tiptoes so you're just a little taller.
“Tell me about this custom, Clarke of the Sky People.”
You laugh and kiss her; you are happy and for now you have time; for now you have the rest of your life with her. She tastes sweet, like cake and champagne, and she pulls away before you can get her undressed.
“Wait,” she says breathily. “I want you to know that I did mean all that I said today.”
“I know you did,” you tell her. “I meant everything too.”
She smiles. “I promise I will try very hard not to die for a long while.”
You shake your head because you want to laugh and you want to cry and Lexa is often adorable and tragic and lovely. “I love you.”
“I love you, Clarke,” she says, then steps forward and kisses you again. “While I still do not really understand the concept of marriage, it was not a bad night.”
“Shut up,” you say with an amused snort.
“Is that any way to talk to a commander?”
“Oh please,” you say, then turn and shove her down on the bed, crawl on top of her. You settle your weight on her hips gently, sitting up, and she runs her hands down your ribs once, just resting them there gently.
“So,” she says, “the wedding night?”
You grin and strip everything else away.
//
There are some days you forget; you are in relative peacetime, and you go with Lexa on various visits to different clans’ settlements sometimes. She likes kids, you’ve discovered, because she plays with them as often as possible, feigning defeat in sword battles and lifting them up above her head, conversing in fast Trigedasleng.
It hurts, a little, because in some other world, you wouldn’t think twice about having them; despite the hurt your mother caused, you cherish her and you love her, and you would love, you think, to be a mom.
But you live in a world of impossible choices and blood on your hands. You live in a place where your wife is living on borrowed time, historically considered.
But still—sometimes Lexa takes her armor off, and she is still soft and young and small; her people respect her too much to let her physicality stop them. They respect her more because she cares about them, and because she loves you—you took down a mountain of people who had killed grounders for decades. The two of you are legends.
And still, right now, Lexa is sitting on the ground with a little girl, showing her the stars incorporated into the tattoo that runs the length of her left arm. They’re too far away for you to hear, sitting on the ground on a little patch of grass. She glances over at you and her eyes are so soft when she catches yours, spring and green and the earth. She looks back at the little girl and she glances down, shy, but then Lexa hands her a flower and helps her up. Lexa trails behind as the little girl walks toward you, and then she bows a little and holds out the small yellow thing, root still dangling.
“Mochof, Klark kom Skaikru.”
You’re pretty fluent in Trigedasleng by now, so you certainly know that one.
“Yu ste mounin—“
“—Okteivia,” she says.
You and Lexa share a smile.
“Okteivia,” you say.
She blushes and Lexa ruffles her hair, puts a gentle hand on the small of your back. “Okteivia,” she says, “osir na bants.”
Octavia nods and when you offer your hand for her to shake she jumps a little excitedly and then takes it softly. She looks even more excited when Lexa gives her a small hug, and you laugh a little. Lexa walks back to her horse as Octavia scampers away, and she buckles her armor—sash and all—back on her shoulders. She gives you a quick kiss before you get back on your horse, and you break off the root of the little flower and tuck it behind her ear.
Neither of you talk on the way back, because you both ache for other worlds, but—for now—this one is enough.
//
“It is not a war,” Lexa tells you before both of your people’s officials come into the war room. “I will not start a war.”
You nod.
“This is making sure we are ready to protect our people.”
“Okay,” you say, and you squeeze her hand. She looks at you with a small smile; she’s been in power as commander since she was seventeen, almost nine years. She is not scared, you know she tells herself. She is not scared—she cannot be scared—because the Ice Nation took her universe away once and she will not let it happen again.
//
It’s not war, not yet—she was right, and you are not surprised. You have strayed away from battle since Mt. Weather, instead helping your mother take over medical care, incorporate your technology with the grounders’ traditional medicines and techniques.
But there are battles to hold off a war, and Lexa is, of course, not the sort of commander to sit on the sidelines while she asks her people to die for her.
At this point, Indra and Octavia are Lexa’s direct seconds, and you hug Octavia goodbye, shake Indra’s hand, and kiss Lexa hard and then soft before they head out to meet a small faction of the Ice Nation’s troops at the border of your respective territories.
You stay behind to rule, to organize, to keep everyone at home healthy and safe.
The person you most want to keep safe, though, is sitting regally on her favorite war horse, armor buckled and warpaint on, a gun and sword in her belt. Lexa is beautiful like this, at home in her body. She speaks in Trigedasleng and then English, some inspiring thing about not taking lives and keeping peace. You know she aches over Costia—some days you still ache over Finn, but this is close for her—but her voice never wavers.
When she leaves a cold front moves in, the last effort of winter to freeze over blooming flowers and buds on the trees. At night when your bed is cold you remember Lexa as only you know her: scars and tattoos and your name on her tongue softly late at night, your fingers curled inside of her, her eyes open and always, always searching yours for something unnamable that she finds, every single time.
//
It takes longer—Lexa said one month—for them to come back to Polis. Lexa is twenty-six years, two months, and seven days old when you stand near the biggest city gate and try to find her.
You would’ve felt something, you think, if she’d died—you’re bound in ways you don’t understand, through blood and impossible decisions and birthrights and absolutions and love.
You see Indra in front, and you feel your chest tighten and tears prick at your eyes as the majority of their troops filter through the gate.
But there is no Lexa.
But then there’s Octavia, directing a number of warriors carrying the wounded on their own horses or on stretchers. The wounded, so—the living.
She rushes up to you when she spots you, points to Lincoln and another large man walking with a stretcher quickly toward the medical tent. “She’s not dead,” Octavia says.
You sniffle once and Octavia pulls you to her in a tight hug.
“She’s alive, okay?”
You take a deep breath. “Yeah,” you say, “okay.”
She pulls back and nods. “Let’s go, yeah?”
You nod and walk with her quickly to the hospital you’ve help build, the sterile rooms and the smell of disinfectant and blood and dirt shocking for a moment.
You should—you know—actually check on the list of casualties, who’s most wounded and who most needs your help, but you’re shaking and you love her and you need her to be alive. Your mother finds you moments after you walk into the building, and she takes one look at you before saying, “Go—we can handle this. Radio me if you need.”
You nod and walk with Octavia to the trauma bays. It isn’t hard to find Lexa—she is both the commander and your wife, so she has the best one. When you pull back the curtain you want to throw up, because her hair is matted and her nose is broken, an arrow broken off and sticking out of her shoulder. You’re pretty sure her leg is broken, and she has a gash on her forehead. Her hands are scraped raw.
You want to be mad at everyone for not keeping her safe, but you know that Lexa stepped in front of that arrow on her own to save someone else.
And you know she did.
“She got hit and fell down a hill,” Octavia says.
“A cliff,” Lincoln corrects quietly. “Octavia saved her.”
You take a deep breath and turn toward Octavia, who is staring at Lexa’s unconscious form. “Thank you,” you say.
She meets your eyes. “You’ve done the same for me.”
You nod, and then—you are a doctor; you might be the best doctor here, and you put aside your emotions for now, because love is weakness, and you cannot afford that right now.
You direct nurses and get her in a gown and coordinate machines, put in IVs. She doesn’t have any internal bleeding; her lungs are clear; she has no worrisome bleeding in her brain; her vital signs are stable: you know she is, overall, very lucky. But—her femur is broken, but it’s clean and it’s not difficult to reduce the fracture. The arrow in her shoulder went straight through muscle, and you pull it out. It doesn’t test positive for any poisons you know, but you load her up on antidotes and antibiotics anyway. You wash her face and stitch up her forehead. Her skull is fractured, just slightly, so you wrap a bandage gently around her head, even though there’s not much you can do.
You clean the blood from her hands and put stark white gauze around her palms, and then you sit down next to her in bed and wait for her to wake up.
//
She’s unsurprisingly a terrible patient, and you’ve had to assign a nurse to her specifically for the past four days because she keeps trying to get out of bed and walk around.
You want to be annoyed, but when you bring her dinner after you’ve finished your rounds, she’s sitting up and trying to play chess with herself, concentrating very hard, and you really can’t be anything but relieved.
When you go into her room she smiles, pushes aside the little table with the small chess board you’d brought her on it. Her eyes are both bruised purple, but all of the swelling has gone down. Other than her shoulder being bandaged still and her leg in a cast, she looks relatively fine.
“Hello, Clarke,” she says, and she holds out her hand.
You take it gently and kiss her once, then sit down, hand her a plate of food. She sets it on her lap and starts eating immediately, and you laugh and don’t even bother clearing off the table.
You talk with her about your other patients, about the debriefs Indra and Octavia had given her—war has been stalled for an indeterminate amount of time—and then you sit in comfortable silence.
When she’s finished, you say, “You get to come home with me tonight.”
She perks up immensely. “Really?”
“Yep,” you say, “as long as you promise to not get up and attempt to walk around in the middle of the night. Your leg is, like, really broken, Lexa.”
Her eyes dance a little and she solemnly says, “I promise.”
“Good,” you say, then clear her plate and grab a change of clothes from your bag. You help her get dressed, although it’s a dramatic affair where she tries to bat your hands away multiple times and sighs frequently, but you get it done. She scoffs when someone brings in a wheelchair, but her shoulder is still healing, so she can’t use crutches quite yet, so she pouts but sits down anyway.
You squeeze her shoulder once, and she puts her hand on yours, just for a second, before you wheel her away. There will be time enough tomorrow for battle plans, for fortifying walls, for the discussion of children and governments and schools.
For now, you have Lexa. You have your people and your love. You are running on borrowed time, because she is Commander and war is impossible. You love someone who has been raised to die, and it is never easy.
But once you situate yourself with her in your bed—your bed—after one month, two weeks, and four days, and she tucks herself into your chest as best you can, you think it’s more time than either one of your probably expected. Probably deserved.
You kiss the top of her head and she sighs.
“Thank you,” you say.
She nods, presses a kiss to your chest. “I will always try for you, Clarke of the Sky People.”
You laugh and she smiles against your skin. “Get some sleep, Heda Lexa.”
“I love you,” she whispers.
“I love you too.”
She nods and then sighs against you. It sends shivers up your spine and you wrap your arm just a bit tighter around her, because, for tonight, she is warm in your arms, healing bones and all.