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Just cause it’s all in your head
doesn’t mean it has to be in mine
Don’t believe what you said
Still can’t get it out of my mind
I’ve tried to find myself an approval
I’ve already been there, already done that
And it got me nowhere, it brought me nothing
but a good place to hide in
No one to confide in now
Only One – Lifehouse
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Clarke opens the door, feigning delighted surprise at Lexa’s presence. What Lexa doesn’t know, however, is how hard it is for Clarke to choke down the instant rage and revulsion that burns in her stomach at every sight of the woman.
Pretend like nothing happened, she repeats to herself as she had for the entirety of her stay in Polis thus far. Nothing happened and she’s still a person you need, a person you trusted. Clarke cuts off that thought as abruptly as she has every time she’s repeated the mantra to herself. She will not allow her mind to whisper—as her heart screams to—that Lexa betrayed her, that she is not someone worthy of her trust. Or forgiveness.
No, Clarke makes herself forget these things in Lexa’s presence. It is the only way to protect her people because unfortunately Lexa is the only one who can ensure their continued survival. She, and her people, need Lexa to live, to reign, and to still respect and trust Clarke.
Unfortunately for Clarke that also means suffering her attentions.
Clarke’s artist’s eyes automatically appreciate Lexa’s beauty—her thin dress barring the intimate skin of shoulders and legs—but her lithe form and graceful loveliness are now wrapped up in Clarke’s self-hatred. Clarke spent much of her exile turning Lexa over in her mind as the object of her hostility; she chained every memory of Lexa to the fear, pain, guilt, and grief she’d felt when she’d refused to return to Camp Jaha with Bellamy. No, they were synonymous for Clarke; Lexa is the focal point of her destruction, the fire that welded her into the monster she is. The reason she herself cannot be forgiven.
So no, Clarke can’t admire the slopes of Lexa’s cheeks or the blossom of her mouth because those cheeks house eyes that deceive and that mouth hides a tongue that lies and seduces. Lexa is someone accustomed to power, and therefore someone always calculating to hold that power.
If Lexa wants to show up at Clarke’s bedroom for reassurance or flirting or whatever, Clarke will go along with it. She almost cringes at the sound of her own voice as she bids the woman to enter because it reminds her of how she speaks with her mother sometimes. She lays an artificial steadiness to her tone, something to prop her voice, that speaks to the distance she places between her words and her feelings. The distance she cultivates from all the things she can’t or won’t say. All pretense and so hollow.
Lexa’s eyes are guarded and hard, but Clarke knows she’s trying to draw her in that way so she plays along. Clarke will simper and preen, giving the narcissist the attention she seeks and throwing a few glances through the cover of her lashes — but only because Lexa will no longer be the only manipulator in this relationship.
Clarke asks about the girl with the black blood. She’s pieced together enough to know that the girl has a claim on Lexa’s position as heda of the coalition. The girl is still too young to be a playing piece, but she’s on the board.
Lexa mentions a conclave, her death.
“Your ambassadors betrayed you – how do you move forward?” Clarke wants to hear reassurances that their truce, her people being the thirteenth clan, is safe and guaranteed.
“They were doing what they believed was right for their people, too.” Lexa whispers this and holds Clarke’s gaze for moments too long.
Clarke stares back at Lexa and tries to get a hold of herself. She’s still the leader you trusted, she lies to herself. She shows Lexa that she knows she’s providing an excuse and asking for forgiveness for her own sins, but Clarke looks away and stands. Not even fake Clarke can find it in herself to forgive Lexa, but she will be docile and polite.
She will wish her goodnight in her own tongue and usher her out of the chamber with a soft smile and eyes carefully guarded against the emotions Lexa expects her to feel.
Clarke is stepping up and into her own. Exactly the type of leader Lexa has taught her to be.
But then Lexa shuts the door and Clarke looks away with a sigh. She is so confused. This is not who she is or wants to be.
She wills the muscles of her face to relax after keeping them so tense and controlled throughout the encounter.
Their conversation plays back at her, and she finds herself fuming—a familiar emotion that she grabs onto like a lifeline. How is advocating for the destruction of her people right for any of the clans of the coalition? What threat did her meager, bumbling people pose to the well-established cultures and thriving society of the Grounders that the ambassadors felt the need to rebel against their Commander? Lies. Lies, Lexa! They smelled weakness and they pounced. Lexa spoke only of herself with that display; had completely ignored what Clarke had meant. Still she tries to manipulate her.
Lexa’s gently smiling face fades from Clarke’s mind just as the anger rolls away like the smokescreen it was. She’s nauseous once more, but also because she’s still falling. She thought she’d met the bottom a long time ago, but she’d been wrong; there is depth yet unknown in this hell.
She’s still losing herself to whatever it is Lexa wants her to be because even though she still hates her, even though she can feel nothing toward Lexa and her advances, she’s still inviting them. She’s still acting the part even though it’s not who she is. The falsity makes her sick.
As she lay down in her large, canopy bed, seeking comfort in the light of the candles still burning, she thinks back to sleeping in tents. To sitting around a campfire all hours of the night with only the rest of the 100 around her, and how she felt back then. Nothing had been black and white either, but it didn’t feel like this. She still felt like herself, mostly, in those days.
Because there were people you could trust, her heart whispers. Clarke clenches her eyes closed around welling tears. In that sea of grey, of violence and confusion and the unknown, she thinks of everyone she had trusted, everyone she knew she could trust. Bellamy, Monty, Jasper, Raven, Finn… Her thoughts skip past him. All of those, and then her mother. She wants to laugh—she had been so spoiled with friends back then. Now she knew she lay in the snake pit, never allowed to trust a smiling or kind face (not Roan’s, not Lexa’s).
She had felt in control back then, she had felt as if she’d mattered. Her opinions were important, her advice to be taken seriously. At every turn Lexa blocked her here, but Bellamy… Her partner, her co-leader, he had trusted her. He had believed in her and given her confidence, considered her thoughts and more often then not followed through on her plans. He had been a constant. In his own way, he had understood her. Together, they had been able to consider more angles of an issue, to account for as much as possible while providing for and protecting their people.
Here, Lexa won’t give her a straight answer about anything. Lexa refuses to talk to her about strategy—‘I keep wondering how the Ice Nation knew about the self-destruct mechanism in Mount Weather.’ Lexa never answered her. She deflected, as usual, and sought to placate her with some oath of loyalty or binding. No, Clarke physically shakes her against the pillow, she will not be deceived again. She knows how it feels to share power, to be part of a team that leads. This is not it.
With all the warm surety thinking of Bellamy brings her, she’s suddenly can’t swallow a breath past the pain of their last encounter.
She remembers how he looked at her when she said she’d be staying. His eyes had flashed hot and incensed and, as he’d turned away from her, she’d seen the snarl at his lips. So disapproving and revolted by her, by the falsity.
‘She left us to die in that mountain.’
‘Come home to [your people].’
He had wanted her to leave with him. That was the anger on his face; he felt she was betraying him and their people. He didn’t try to conceal his hatred of Lexa when he glanced at her, but he couldn’t wipe away his disgust when he looked back her, Clarke, either.
She makes herself feel the shame of that look, because she is a monster. Grounders had just wiped out a portion of their people, again, and here she was siding with Grounders to fix their problem.
‘I’m sorry’ was all she could say because she didn’t know how to make him understand; she was already lost, she was already broken. She is Wanheda, and she brings death where she goes. She couldn’t go back with him, as much as she wanted to. She didn’t deserve to feel safe or comforted or valued, and she knew he was offering those things to her—a place to belong and her position once more. As easily as he had offered her forgiveness.
She can’t accept those things because she isn’t that girl anymore. Bellamy doesn’t know her now.
The thought breaks her already stone heart. She doesn’t want him to know what she’s become.
She is sure of nothing anymore. She is nothing anymore. All pretense and so hollow, parading around as if she can still make a difference. Her life feels like water sifting through her fingers, like the moonlight pooling around the edges of her curtains.
She falls asleep eventually, her pillow still damp.
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