Lightning Only Strikes Once - Clexa

Chapter 33: Dressed To Kill

She forgets, sometimes, how much she loves Lexa.

It's the shock of the second when she sees her again after hours apart, when her green eyes blaze at the sight of Clarke. It's the deep, even breaths she makes as she falls asleep beside Clarke after stolen, beautiful moments. It's the urge to run her fingers through Lexa's hair, to touch her skin, to make whatever contact she can just to remind herself that Lexa is real and there and alive. It's the genuine little half-smile Lexa gives sometimes, too timid to belong on the face of such a powerful person, and the fact that Clarke may be the only one who ever gets to see that particular smile.

It's the look that only Lexa can give her – total understanding, total acceptance. Even before they were the only two people who could remember a whole world, that look was nearly always in Lexa's eyes. It's how on the rare occasions she didn't understand, she was surprised by Clarke, but always like it was an amazing surprise, an unexpected gift. Like Lexa got to see more of Clarke, and that was the only thing that she wanted. All those things... they remind her how much she loves Lexa.

But right now, perhaps the clearest indication of how much she loves Lexa is that she just watched a man bleed to death in front of her by Lexa's hand and all she thought was, he shouldn't have talked to her like that.

It bothers her that she can think like that. But the truth is, if Lexa hadn't killed him, then every gona there would have thought she was weak. Clarke knows that. And she knows that they're going to be introducing a lot of new things to the Grounders soon – Skaikru as part of the alliance, jus nou drein jus daun, open war with the Mountain. They can't afford to have anyone questioning Lexa now or there's no way they can even start working on those.

Of course, without that in context, and without much experience with death, it's not a surprise the others are taking it poorly.

"What the hell was that?" Raven asks. She's pale, but otherwise fine, eyes dark and fierce in her wan face.

"You've seen people be floated before," Clarke points out.

"Exactly, floated," Finn points out. "Not stabbed in the throat. And when they're floated it's for committing a crime. She just straight-up murdered him, Clarke! How can you be so fine with this?"

"An exaggeration," Clarke says firmly. "I know you don't understand this, but Lexa was doing what she had to do." She turns to Wells for back-up. "Do you think someone would have lived through threatening your father with an army?"

"No," Wells says after a moment, though he still looks concerned. "That's true. Threatening the Chancellor is a crime."

Not that Diana Sydney was punished for it, Clarke thinks cynically. Threatening the Chancellor is a floating crime when it's done by someone young and stupid, but when it's done by someone influential and popular the Ark will show 'mercy' and just keep them locked up. Sometimes she thinks Bellamy has a point with his talk about some people in the Ark being privileged – people like Jaha, Kane, Sydney and even Clarke's own mother get a better level of treatment by the law than the others.

"We nearly ended up in an actual battle back there," Clarke says, "There was no way the Trikru gonas would have gone along with it and given up their weapons. At least one would have fought back, the Azgeda gonakru would have attacked, and some of us would have died."

"Right," says Raven, calming down a bit. "Okay. So the Commander took that Rathan guy out to make sure that didn't happen. Removing a stuck cog before the machine breaks."

"Sacrificing a pawn," Wells corrects with a sigh. Clarke can see from his face that despite recognising the logic of it, the death doesn't stick well with him. "Makes sense."