The 100 One Shots

We're a ticking time bomb*(Clexa)

She's struggling to understand how and why things seem to always go wrong. Even when it looks like everything is going well and another crisis has been averted, there's a twist waiting around the corner. And the stakes keep getting higher and higher.

They've never been as high as they are in this moment. And once again, she's supposed to fix it.

She's supposed to play her role and play it well.

And so the mighty Wanheda is standing here in the Commander's bedroom, looking out the window, trying to count the times she's pulled the Sky people from the edge of a cliff. Trying to figure out if she can do it again.

With each breath she takes, that little flicker of hope that lives in her heart threatens to extinguish. Because this is too complicated, and too many lines have been crossed; too many lives lost. There are too many variables to consider and what she needs is quiet, but she will not be afforded that courtesy today. Not when Titus and Lexa are arguing in raised voices just down the hall - close enough for Clarke to hear them, but too far to understand - and the clamor in the throne room refuses to die down.

"Clarke?"

She turns gingerly to see Lexa on the other end of the room, standing in the doorway. Her shoulders are just a tiny bit slumped, her hands at her sides, her mouth pulled downwards. She looks so very tired. Still, her eyes are as alive as they've ever been and even if she's exhausted, she doesn't seem resigned. Never that.

Clarke watches her as she takes a step into the room, turning slightly to close the door behind her. Several more strides, and the Commander of the Twelve Clans is standing in front of her. Or is she?

How many people have been given an opportunity to see Lexa like this? Without her red sash, no weapons strapped to her body, her body language lacking the usual air of authority and superiority. Just Lexa, standing in her bedroom.

"I have to go with them," Clarke says, her voice barely above a whisper, her eyes once again looking out the window, at the city below them.

A low, "No," is all she gets in response.

"Lexa-"

"No."

She looks up then, and she could swear Lexa is closer than she was just a moment before. There is fire in her green eyes, and the sharp lines of her face don't seem so tired anymore.

"You know you can't go," she says in a softer voice.

"You know I have to," Clarke responds without missing a beat.

A sigh escapes those full lips and the green is covered for a bit as Lexa takes a moment to steady herself.

"I have to try, Lexa. I have to."

"The army is marching and if your people don't agree to my terms, I-" Another sigh. Another moment. "This can only end two ways, Clarke."

Indeed. The army of the Twelve Clans is marching on Arkadia as they speak, on their way to lay siege on the camp. When the Commander addressed her people earlier that day and declared that the warriors are not to attack, but wait and see if the Sky people respond to the demands made, there was an uproar. So much bloodthirst crammed into that one room, so many people asking for vengeance. And yet Lexa stood there, solid like a rock, her voice bellowing across the room about vengeance not being justice. About new ways and the future of their children.

And Clarke was there with her heart in her throat and eyes closed, in the midst of chaos. Titus said their people would never accept it, and each second in that room made her think he may very well have been right.