Chapter Text
The sky was a godless grey; the morning humid and wet, the sun unseen within Polis. Where once the city was alive with the sounds of children running and laughing, the clinging and clanging of metal, the bustling of people in markets and the smell of food, ready for purchase, now the city was deathly silent. The people, the thousands of them gathered and were watching, were unanimously quiet. The world did not dare make a sound, though it was not soundless.
The flogging, as whip curled and slashed against skin – sick and harsh and unforgiving – echoed throughout the city square. It reached her ears and the dread within Clarke lurched, vile and thick within her organs, heavy on her chest, as she made her way through the crowd. She didn’t know what she was feeling, only that it was a turbulent of emotions that overall was uncomfortable and wrong and why Lexa?
Clarke didn’t know, couldn’t conclude though her mind whirled, wired and worked to understand, to make sense. But the matter was there were things that while understood left one’ speechless, left one’ dumbfounded and seemingly uncomprehending of a matter. When Clarke, along with her companions – Abby, Bellamy, Raven – reached the front where Lincoln, Octavia and Kane were already standing, still and tense, by Indra, and her eyes befell the scene before her, it was such a time.
“Oh my God.”
Her mother was not so inarticulate, having voiced Clarke’s thoughts, voiced one of them. They stood there, tight lipped or parted mouth, staring fixed and disbelieving, fighting back words of protest and senses of right and wrong, despite their disdain for the Commander. Clarke felt like she could scream, could boil, in anger. But at Lexa, or at the situation, at herself, she didn’t know. She didn’t know anything that day.
“You were meant to arrive next week,” Indra stated, voice steady, calm, and pertaining that subtle contempt with eyes unmoving from Lexa’s frame.
Lexa, who had hands tied to a wooden poll, shirt cut from the back; Lexa who was bound and bleeding, her blood a puddle she stood on, slipped on. Her back was a river of it, of the flowing, thick, liquid; red and staining as the scars that would be formed. Clarke looked and saw, transfixed and horrified at Lexa, at her back – the entirety of it. Her back was a galaxy of pain, was a painting, with each cut an exploding nebula, a permanent stroke, with skin torn and ripping – the whip, the crack of its wrath, the totality and catastrophe of the lashes, shredding her being.
You were not meant to see this, was what Indra was saying, Clarke knew, and the thought twisted her stomach further as a knife in the gut, ragged and ripping.
“She hasn’t screamed,” Octavia said, voice hoarse, in quiet awe, and she swallowed disbelief.
“How long?” Abby asked, because Clarke could still find no words, could not speak, and she was reminded of the night of the Mountain when Lexa left her there, grief stricken and betrayed; and she was speechless then too.
“This is the last day.”
“You mean – ”
“One hundred lashes a day, for seven days. Seven hundred lashes for two hundred and fifty Grounders, seventy Sky People, and three hundred and eighty Mountain Men,” Indra explained, interrupted. “The Coalition required appeasement, assurance.”
“I don’t understand,” Clarke murmured, because she didn’t.
The whip continued to snap, crack, and she wondered how many more times she would hear the sound.
“Though we have made arrangements for peace in the coming meeting, the Coalition feared you would seek retribution for the betrayal, would blame Heda for having to reap the Mountain. Though it was Heda’s decision, should you – who have defeated the Mountain – retaliated, war would arise, and people on both sides would suffer. Blood must have blood. Heda is taking punishment for her people. In this we hope blood has been paid.”
“I don’t… we don’t want…This is torture. She could die.”
Clarke had thought of killing Lexa in her months away, in her anger, in her guilt and blame and despair; had imagined Lexa dying, by her hand, perhaps slowly, but not this: a demonstration, an inhumane practice that served nothing but excruciating pain, the vibrations shooting through Lexa’s back and up the floggers arm, the force of it all wrenching, malicious and cruel.
“The Ice Queen also wanted punishment for the sacrifice of TonDc. Lexa agreed.”
“How could anyone agree to be subjected to this?”
“Atonement. Honour. Strength. Though you live, Heda made the decision to sacrifice your lives for her people, and to sacrifice TonDc to finish the war with the Mountain. This is to serve as a reminder.”
“She didn’t defeat the Mountain Men, she didn't kill them,” Bellamy interjected.
“No.”
“Then why?”
“I don’t know.”
“When does this end?”
“It ends when she reaches seven hundred lashes, or she orders it to stop.”
Seven hundred lashes. This shouldn’t be happening. How are you alive, Lexa?
Clarke swallowed her heart that ached for Lexa. Clarke gazed on, jaw clenched and war simmering inside her.
Lexa’s legs were weak, were crumpled beneath her weight; were unsteady on the slip and slope of her blood with the poll as her only support for standing. She was not aware of the world, was not aware of her title, of her people, in her torment. It was gone and dead. Her existence was pain, was aching agony and stinging strikes. It had been this way for seven days with hardly any rest and she could barely remember a time before it, could not think of a time that would be after it. How she was alive, she did not know.
She might have ordered it all to stop had she a voice, might have screamed had she the energy. But when she opened her mouth all that arose from her throat was coughs and spurts and spits of blood. Breathing was difficult, was a conscious effort, and her lungs hurt, as if burning, and her eyes were closed and heavy, and should she allow it, Lexa was sure they may never open again. But she thought of Clarke, of seeing the girl within days, of blue eyes cold and distant, harsh and unforgiving, and thought how she needed to ensure the girl lived, that her people lived, that they would not be mistreated in her death. She thought of possible war and thought of life being more than just surviving and thought how her people deserved that.
So her knuckles whitened as her hands tightened around the poll, and she righted herself, grimaced at the lashing and the movement of her muscles, tender and torn, and she breathed, she endured. She did all this, but she did not scream.
*
Sometime later, after day and duty was done, and her people thought her a god, Lexa laid front first on her bed, resting, alive. In the confines of her room, in the company of her healers, of Clarke, she screamed. She cried out when the wounds were cleaned, cried out as her back was washed and stitched and sewn together, a fixed tapestry. Clarke helped, whispered encouraging words, sweet nothings, because she could not think of the past or the future when faced with the present of the day, of Lexa, near death, so bloody and raw and broken and her own heart bleeding.
Now Lexa was resting. Clarke looked at her back and saw the tattoo there, now cracked, like a fragmented mirror. It was beautiful, tragically and tenderly so. Were Lexa’s skin and back and bones not so sensitive, Clarke would have traced the ink, would have touched. An angry part of her was tempted, a dark part of her wandered, how much it would burn Lexa, if one was to prod and push. But it was a small and fleeting feeling, a thought.
“Clarke,” Lexa spoke, a little hoarsely.
Her eyes were slow to open and quick to close, and Clarke was there in an instant, pulling away hairs from the exhausted woman’s face.
“Shush, rest, Lexa,” she whispered.
“You are not real.”
Her voice was weak, and the blonde was almost surprised she had a voice at all. But Lexa had defied many thoughts today, Clarke mused, as she gathered a warm, wet clothe to wipe away the sweat. Her fight not yet done, they had to look out for a fever, for heat and sweat on skin. She wondered if the fighting would ever be over, and not in the sense of death.
“I am real.”
“No.”
Clarke shook her head, fought a smile despite herself, despite everything. Her voice was low, was smooth, was kind.
“Okay.”
“You do not care for me.”
“You should be resting,” Clarke chastised, gently.
“I am. I am dreaming.”
“Is that so?”
“You would not,” Lexa paused, heaved a painful breath, “care for me, otherwise.”
She couldn’t deny that she would not be there, at least if it weren’t for Lexa’s condition. But caring, Clarke always cared.
“And what about the pain? Doesn’t that make this real?”
“My dreams have mostly been of pain.”
Clarke paused, felt her eyes sting, a little, at the corners. She would not cry, but the feeling was enough to recognise the emotion, the reaction. She breathed, revealing something weak, something honest, of letting something heavy inside out.
“Me too.”
A minute passed, or more – Clarke was not counting. The room was silent, was solitary save for herself and the Commander, Lexa. But then Lexa spoke, and Clarke was shocked, surprised, though simultaneously not. Still, her eyes widened, pupils dilated, at the words.
“I love you.”
I love you.
It made sense – it was one of those things that made sense, but still left someone dumbstruck. But Clarke was not so speechless.
“What?”
Nor, articulate, in this instance, in that moment.
“I love you.”
Lexa was looking at her now, face resting sideways on the pillow, looking young, innocent, yet old, for all the wounds on her back, the stories her scars told. Clarke blinked, and fought tears again – out of joy or despair, in this moment she didn’t know. And when Clarke replied, it was with calmness, a thread of disappointment, laces of sadness, of longing; because despite all her anger, bitterness, there was very much love for this worn warrior too. Clarke, briefly, partly, wondered if this was a moment of pity. But Lexa – Lexa could never pity her. They understand one another too much, for pity.
“You’re just saying that… because you think this is isn’t real.”
“I could never say it awake.”
“Why not?” Clarke sniffed, shifted a stray hair of Lexa’s again, and tucked enough to see her face clearly.
“For you. You do not love me, you hate me. I do not wish to burden you with my feelings. You carry enough, as it is.”
“Oh, Lexa,” Clarke leaned forward, and though Lexa’s position made it difficult, pressed her lips to the skin of the woman’s forehead, rested it there, a moment, as if she could transfer all her feelings through it. Because Lexa was so precious like this, so beautiful in her vulnerabilities and her consideration that it almost breaks Clarke in how her heart expands whenever she was presented with such delicacy. “Your love – that… that isn’t heavy. It’s big, but, it’s one of the lighter things.”
“But you do not love me.”
“It’s not… it’s complicated. But I feel so many things, right now, for you. Not just love. I need to work through things. I’m not...”
“Can you make it simple?”
“How?” Clarke sighed, dejected, almost.
“Do you love me?”
Clarke swallowed, an invisible lump in her throat, an ache of a different kind. She swallowed back the pain and the heartache, separated the threads of her feelings that intertwined a tapestry, and answered honestly. She spoke and it was one of the most truthful things she had ever said.
“Yes.”
Relief, acceptance, washed over Lexa, filled her heavy body, and her eyes closed at the admission, “I can bear your hate then, until love is enough.”
“And what if I’m never ready?”
“Then you are never ready, but I am always yours.”
The blonde kissed the forehead again, though this time she was quick, she did not linger, and her eyes and face titled to the ceiling as she blinked back her emotions.
“Rest, Lexa.”
“I am, Clarke.”
Lexa’s eyes were closed, and by her slow breathing, the stillness of her body, the subtle rise and fall of her back, it was apparent she was now asleep, was resting. Clarke watched and wondered if she wanted Lexa to think this was all a dream in the morning, wondered that even if Lexa knew it wasn’t, nothing would be said. She watched and wondered for the future, thought how her stomach churned and her heart screamed at Lexa’s torture and how her heart beats, alive and large, at Lexa’s love, and how she was at Lexa’s side now, despite it all; despite the hate, anger, bitterness – exhausting things that are heavy, that are an effort, to carry for too long, where love, forgiveness and kindness are much lighter. She thought how she fought the urge to kiss lips in comfort, because those were lovely lips, even red with blood. She thought all this, and had a thought it would be easier later.