Lightning Only Strikes Once - Clexa

Chapter 9: At The Beginning With You

Lexa swallows hard. Here is Clarke, the Clarke, her Clarke. Clarke blonde and sleek, Clarke as she was before the death of the Mountain.

Clarke seems shocked – did she look like this the first time they met? Did she pull back, horrified by Lexa's warpaint and knife? Lexa cannot be sure. Perhaps not, perhaps Clarke was tougher then after months on the ground. But this Clarke's face is every bit as strong as the Clarke she remembers.

She looks at the people Clarke has brought with her this time.

Octavia and Linkon are not worth noting. They gaze at each other with the starry-eyed affection they demonstrated before, already well on the way towards mooning about each other like lovesick branwadas. Perhaps this time they will be the bridge between their people they failed to be in the past.

There is a tall dark-skinned boy, who looks at Clarke with affection. Lexa does not know him. That suggests he is irrelevant and can be safely disregarded. For the moment, at least. She notes he is strong and stands well, that perhaps he will be a good gona someday, and then moves on.

But there is also... Finn.

Lexa wonders what is wrong with her, what foolish maggot bored through her brain to make her forget that Clarke did not come to her alone and happy. Clarke first came to her broken and bleeding and tear-stained, broken by a love that ended in violence. It never occurred to her that by deliberately removing the violence from their interactions she would allow Clarke to be happy with her formerly deceased lover.

Finn is alive, his face not yet creased with contemplation about the killing he will do. Clarke must be happy with him – Clarke must have loved him very much, to so instantly forgive the murder of so many.

Clarke is different, now. She still has her love. If Lexa still had Costia, would she love Clarke? Perhaps not. Costia was warmth and childish giggles and the burns of a sunny day and Lexa before she was Heda. Clarke was war rooms and harsh decisions and stark eyes and fleeting moments of beauty and closeness. One was the love of just Lexa, the other was loved by Lexa and Heda alike. Innocent loves are the hardest to discard.

She does not know Finn, his flaws, his virtues, his dreams. All she knows is that he killed eighteen people for no reason. All she knows is that he died in front of her, at Clarke's hands. Lexa watches as he leaves the room, and then returns her attention to Clarke. Clarke who is not her Clarke, Clarke who is. Clarke who does not remember, who is different. Does it matter? However different she may be with Finn here, she is Clarke, and that is all Lexa needs her to be.

Clarke's eyes are blazing. "You took Bellamy."

"I requested to speak to the leader of your people," Lexa corrects, her foolish heart constricted and useless. She allows coldness to overtake her instead.

"I'm Clarke," Clarke says, as if her name is not carved into Lexa's soul. "I'm the leader of my people." She meets Lexa's eyes steadily, but there is something in them that is strange. A desperation in the way she stares.

Lexa smirks and plays with her knife, trying to avoid that searching gaze. "Then it is good of you to meet with me. What do you do here, Clarke kom Skaikru, on my land?"

"I'm sure Bellamy already filled you in," Clarke counters. Her eyes flick to the knife, but return to tracing Lexa's face in a way that is both hungry and awed. Exactly how Lexa is trying not to look at her, in fact.

"Perhaps," Lexa leans back against her chair, glad to feel in charge. "And perhaps you should also answer the question."

"We were dropped from our home, the Ark, in order to see if this world is habitable. We don't want to hurt anyone. We just want to survive, Lexa." She says the words like she's learned them by rote in her few days on the ground, barely caring. But her eyes are still fixed on Lexa, still with that strange desperation. The uncaring words and the emotion-filled gaze are at odds with each other, Lexa thinks.