Even though the battle was over, Lexa still slept with knives between her knuckles. She wasn't afraid of a Mountain Man assassin, not anymore. She was afraid of something much worse.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw them.

The Mountain Men. The casualties at Tondc. The Sky People. Costia.

But mostly, Clarke.

That night, she woke screaming. She had been walking, running, across a frozen tundra, running until her lungs burnt with the icy air - only to be too late. Only to find the one she had come for with her head on a stake outside the Ice Nation's walls. She was used to dreaming of Costia; that didn't faze her anymore. Those who are dead, are gone. She had made her peace with that.

But now it was Clarke's head on the stake, and not Costia's.

Her eyes shot open as the dream faded away and her senses sharpened - she was in her tent. She was on her own bed. She was in Tondc, with her people, the very people she had saved.

But her heart was pounding.

She sat up, the woolen sheets pooling around her legs as she gripped at her hair, unbraided and loose, trying to get the image out of her head. Clarke's golden hair, soaked in dark, dried blood like dye. Her eyes, wide open and pecked out by carrion birds. Her lips sewed shut, never to speak again -

"Commander?"

The flap to her tent pulled open. Indra was standing in the doorway, sword drawn, readying for a fight. Expecting and hoping for a fight, maybe.

Lexa hurriedly wiped at her eyes, cursing her subconscious for exposing the weakness she tried so hard to hide. "Everything is fine, Indra."

She expected Indra to immediately close the door to her tent and return to her post. She expected to return to her own terrified, childish nightmares. Instead, Indra took a step inside.

"You have been crying," Indra observed drly. She returned her sword to her hilt as she stood in the doorway, her head high and eyes fierce, as always. There was nothing soft about Indra's appearance; from her scarred cheekbones to her armored attire, she was readied for war, at all times. "This is not the first night I've heard you screaming."

Lexa swung her legs off of the bed so she could sit up with her shoulders straighter; so she seemed less like a child, curled in her bed, shaking from nightmares. "Are you to fault me for nightmares, Indra?" She tried to keep her voice level, and strong. "War doesn't leave anyone unscarred."

"There are others who hear these outbursts. Others who will question your strength, should you allow these fears to show in daylight."

Lexa grit her teeth. "If you think I would show weakness in front of my people, you are mistaken," she spat. "I sent our allies to certain death to save my subjects. I got them out of the mountain. I saved them."

"Your job does not end when the war does, Commander." Indra took a slow step forward - immediately, instinctively, Lexa perceived this as a threat and stood up.

Her legs were still shaking from the nightmare. "Whatever you are implying, say it," she said, her voice stronger now, her usual bravado warming up in her throat. "It's too late to play games."

Indra's hands were clasped behind her, but there was a warning in her voice. "It's been two weeks since your victory. This is your time for celebration, for planning, and you have stayed in your tent. Screaming in the night, like a child. Your people are looking to you to lead them, and you are cowering. You need to go to the Capitol, you need to do something, besides hide."

Lexa felt her face flush, and she felt suddenly exposed and foolish in her undone braids, her face devoid of paint. She didn't feel like a warrior. "I am not hiding," she said, but she wasn't sure she believed herself. "I am recovering."

"Recovering from what? You have no wounds. You are weak. You mourn for the sky girl's companionship, Lexa. It's pitiful."

The sound of her name, rather than her title, hung in the air for less than a second before Lexa grabbed her dagger from her table and had it pointed at Indra's throat, so close that it was breaking skin. Indra's eyes widened slightly but she did not gasp or show any fear or shock.

"You have no right," Lexa snarled, pressing the dagger in further. "No right to come in to your commander's tent and question my leadership. I gave everything for this war. I gave up my integrity and my allies...I gave up Clarke for my people and I will not stand here and be insulted."

Indra turned her chin up to keep it safe from the dagger's blade. "I do not consider truth to be an insult."

Lexa struggled to clear her mind. She was foggy, she was out of practice - before Mount Weather, before all of this, she would know exactly what to say to put Indra in her place and assert her command. But the thought of Clarke - the remnants of the nightmare and the reminder of betraying her trust and her faith - was shaking her up even more. She needed a show of strength. She needed something.

Her breath ragged, she tightened her grip on the dagger and slashed it across Indra's throat.

Not enough to kill. Just enough to send a message.

Indra staggered back, sputtering as she covered the wound. Blood flowed over her fingers.

"Do not test me, Indra," Lexa said, dagger still outstretched. "Now go out there, back to your post. And if I hear a word - if I hear even a whisper - about my leadership, I will not hesitate to cut all the way through your throat."

Indra retreated with one last disdainful look as she disappeared through the flap of the tent. Once she was alone again, Lexa allowed herself to breathe, and she loosened her grip on the dagger until it slipped from her hands and clattered to the ground.

What was wrong with her?

Love was weakness. She knew that, she survived by that, she lead by that mantra. That's what she had been telling herself when she made the deal with the Mountain Men: caring for Clarke was weak. In order to win the war, she sacrificed Clarke. She stood by her decision; she would defend it until her last breath.

And yet, the guilt stirred in her stomach until she leaned over, nearly readying to throw up.

She was sick. She was broken, she was diseased. She couldn't lead like this. Not when she was overcome with concern for the Sky People and sentiment.

The walls of her tent felt like they were closing in on her. She needed to get out of there. She needed to clear her head.

~

If Lexa were thinking strategically, she would have taken a guard with her. Commander or not, fending off an attack alone in the dark could end in her blood on the forest floor. She would have taken more than a bow an arrow. She would have told someone where she was going instead of slipping out the back of Tondc.

But Lexa couldn't care less about strategy.

Her blood boiled at the thought of Indra thinking her weak. Of anyone thinking she was weak.

And she was terrified that they could be right.

The trees thickened as she got further away from Tondc, the night growing darker around her. She didn't pay attention to where she was going or try to keep a straight path. She wandered.

When she was a child, before she had been trained as Anya's second, Lexa had thought that the Tree People were the only people in the world. Or at least, the only ones that mattered. But then came the others of the twelve tribes, and the Mountain Men, and then, the Sky People - dropping out of the sky like rain.

Lexa had heard of Clarke long before she had ever seen her. The girl with the golden hair, the Sky People's commander who constructed missiles and bombs and burned her people alive: ruthless. Merciless. A threat to be eliminated.

When Clarke had first come to beg an alliance, Lexa was more than disappointed. This girl was not a warrior. She had been expecting a warlord, and she got a simple girl. Clarke's compassion made her weak; it blinded her.

And now Lexa was blinded, more than ever.

Was it such a bad thing? She had done so much for her people. If she stepped down, they could forgive -

A twig snapped behind her.

Lexa whirled around, heart pounding, and aimed her bow, pulling the arrow back through her fingers. The woods were dark, but she could just barely see a shadow duck behind a tree. And she could hear, clear as her own pounding heart, someone cock a gun.

She didn't think. Her instincts kicked in. She aimed, and she fired. She aimed for the heart.

The scream was familiar.

It was too familiar.

Lexa lowered her bow and took a few cautious steps forward, straining her eyes to see. Was she imagining things? Or did she see golden hair on the forest floor?

"Clarke," she breathed, dropping the bow.

She ran forward, dropped to her knees beside the crumpled form of Clarke Griffin. There was an arrow just shy of her heart, and she was gasping for breath, trying to stop the bleeding around where the arrow had pierced. As soon as she saw Lexa kneeling over her, she struggled to sit up and back up along the forest floor. "Get away from me," Clarke hissed, her breath shallow. She was putting pressure on her chest, clutching the arrow.

"I didn't know it was you," Lexa said, looking her up and down. She looked like she had been in the woods for weeks. Her hair was unruly, her face streaked with mud.

"I knew it was you," Clarke spat back, and she raised the gun with her free hand, pressing it directly to Lexa's forehead.

"Clarke, don't."

"Why?" Clarke exclaimed, her chest heaving, but her hand completely steady. "You abandoned me. You left my people to die. You made me murder hundreds of innocent people."

Lexa swallowed everything she wanted to say - because I want you to care about me, because I'm scared to die, because I'm sorry.

Instead, she said, "Strategy. Think about it, Clarke, the Mountain Men are dead. If my people find me with a bullet hole in my head they will know that one of the Sky People killed me, and they will take revenge. You do this, your people suffer."

"My people have already suffered," Clarke said. But she gasped, falling back down to the ground and grabbing at her chest. She heaved in a shaky, ragged breath, tears involuntarily falling down her cheeks as she grit her teeth against the pain.

Lexa stared at the wound, her hands outstretched but unsure. "Tell me what to do." When Clarke turned her face away and said nothing, Lexa said again, fiercely, "Clarke. Clarke, tell me what to do. Should I take the arrow out? Should I -"

"It -" Clarke trailed off, struggling to breathe. "It pierced my lung. Unless you have a surgical team here in the woods with you..."

"I'll get you to your healers. To your people, they can help you." Lexa was already lifting under Clarke's arms and her legs, ready to carry her.

Clarke looked into Lexa's eyes for a long, wavering moment. Searching her face for something that clearly, Lexa wasn't providing. "I'll be dead before you're halfway there," she said, her eyes unforgiving. "I thought I might die with you Commander, but I thought it would be in the Mountain. Not in the middle of the woods because you shot me."

Lexa sucked in a sharp breath, wishing desperately that Clarke would say her name and not call her commander. "You can't die. Not like this."

"You would have preferred I died in the mountain trying to get my people out?" Clarke sputtered, blood pooling out of her mouth. "Sorry to disappoint. Guess I'm a survivor, until I'm not."

Lexa grabbed Clarke's face, pulling it in her direction. "Listen to me, you are a survivor. You will survive this. Just tell me what to do, Clarke. Tell me how to save you!"

The sharpness in Clarke's eyes was fading, her face losing pallor by the second. Her neck was tilting back, her face slipping from Lexa's hands.

"Clarke," Lexa gasped. "No. No, you can't. Don't give up. I can - I can -"

She didn't know what she could do. She had seen Clarke heal people, she had seen it, but she couldn't remember. There was something involving the heart - there was something involving breathing air into the lips -

She had to do something. She had to stop being so scared and help someone for once.

"Don't die. Don't die on me," she said, repeating it as she desperately tried to pump on her heart, as she ignored how faint the heartbeat was. She tilted Clarke's head back and pressed her lips to her's, breathing air into her mouth.

In the darkness of night when the nightmares hit their peak, she had consoled herself by imagining her lips against Clarke's again. She had wanted nothing more than that.

But not like this. Never like this.

"Clarke, please," Lexa said, pressing her forehead against Clarke's. She kept one hand on her heart and felt it slowing, growing fainter and fainter. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Clarke."

There was no sound more unbearable than the sudden silence of Clarke's heart stopping.

Lexa felt herself gasp involuntarily. She pulled back from Clarke, staring at her wide-open eyes - the same eyes she had seen pecked out by birds in her nightmares.

Her lips began to form the usual phrase. But saying that Clarke's fight was over felt wrong. It felt...cheap.

It wasn't what Clarke deserved. Clarke hadn't deserved any of this. Not the Mountain, not Lexa's betrayal, not a painful death in the woods.

"May we meet again," Lexa whispered, as she pressed Clarke's eyes closed. "Please."

~

The walk to Camp Jaha was unbearably long. Each step was weighed down with the burden of Clarke's body, even though Lexa could feel her ribs and every bone in her spine. She kept herself from crying. She kept herself strong, for Clarke.

Daylight was just breaking as she made it to the metal walls of the Sky People's camp. Her stomach turned. What would they think when they saw her carrying their leader's dead body into their camp? Would they turn on her?

She didn't care. She walked up to the gates.

The boy Clarke trusted more than anyone stood with a gun just behind the chain-link. Bellamy. Lexa remembered the way Clarke had breathed his name like a prayer.

He glared at her with hatred until he saw who she was carrying in her arms. Until he saw the arrow in Clarke's chest. His face fell, his composure faltering. "Open the gates!" he yelled back into camp. His hands shook on the gun. "Open the god damn gates!"

They opened and Bellamy threw his gun to the side, not noticing or caring whether or not Lexa was armed. He grabbed Clarke from her arms, cradling her against his chest. Gently lowering her down to the ground, clutching her. He must be able to tell, Lexa thought. He must be able to feel that she's not breathing.

"Clarke," he whispered, moving her hair from her face with such tenderness Lexa felt envy rage up inside her. "God, Clarke."

"Bell? What's wrong?"

Octavia, her hair still woven in braids like it had been as Indra's second, ran up to the gate. As soon as she saw Clarke's body and Lexa standing over her, she grabbed the sword from her side and pointed it directly at Lexa. "You are not welcome here," she hissed.

"I didn't -" Lexa faltered. She couldn't say this hadn't been her fault. She had murdered Clarke. "I brought her home."

"Get out." Octavia took a step forward, so that the tip of her sword pointed directly at Lexa's heart. Her eyes were wild, determined. It was the look of someone who wouldn't hesitate to kill. "I said, get OUT."

Lexa backed away. She knew she didn't have a choice.

Before she turned, she took one last look at Clarke. Bellamy had his head bowed, his arms wrapped around her corpse. If Lexa didn't know better, it would look like Clarke was just sleeping.

But she did know better. Clarke Griffin was dead, and it was her fault.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, for the last time, before she turned and ran back into the woods.

She could hear Octavia screaming for someone to find Abby, to get Abby. Lexa wondered why, it was useless, no one could save Clarke now, not even their healer -

When she heard Abby's anguished scream, she remembered that she was Clarke's mother.

The scream cut through Lexa like a blade never could and she staggered, nearly falling. She grabbed on to a tree for balance.

How had it come to this? How had she allowed herself to care this much - about anyone, never mind a Sky Girl?

It hurt. It hurt more than Costia's death ever had. It surged through Lexa like fire, like acid fog was tearing through her veins. She sank to her knees and she allowed herself to scream into her hands, to claw her palms raw with her teeth in frustration.

She had said never again. She had cut love out of her life, and she had let herself care again. Like a child. Like a naïve, trusting child. And look where it had gotten her.

Never again. I never want to feel like this. I never want to feel anything, ever again.

The sun was rising further in the sky as Lexa pulled herself to her feet and turned back to Tondc.

Love was weakness. She would never love anyone, not like this. It would destroy her.

She left Camp Jaha, the Sky People, and Clarke in her wake.

Her people needed a leader, and she was going to be one.