Clexa one shots (the 100)

of stars and earth

For her people, the skies have always been a source of contention. Once upon a time, long before Lexa had been born, the First Grounders would grow angry with those who looked up to the sky. Never look where traitors lie, they used to spit, before cleaving heads with their makeshift war axes. At least, that is what the elders claim happened, though sometimes Lexa does not believe them, for they are the ones she catches gazing up at the stars the most often.

For Lexa herself, the skies are a curiosity. When Costia was still alive, her favorite pastime was to sneak out to a clearing in the forest, to curl up naked together on a thin blanket with limbs tangled and to hold one another close while they gazed up at stars winking across the sky, pressing smiles along one another's flushed skin between making the other laugh with absurd claims that they could see Sky people walking across the surface of the moon. That was back when Anya was alive and Lexa was still in training. That was before she became the Commander, and from then on the only privacy she and Costia could get was in their tents.

Pain threatens to create a lump that will obscure her throat, so Lexa closes her eyes and pushes it out of her mind. Costia has been gone for over a year. Love is weakness, she reminds herself. She does not need it. There are more pressing matters at hand, such as the everlasting tyranny of the wretched Mountain Men. Too many of her people have been lost to them. Too many of her people are still lost inside the mountain. It is her birthright, her duty to save them, to defeat the enemy that threatens them all. Blood must have blood. She knows that.

So why is that not at the forefront of her mind?

***

Standing flanked by four guards, Lexa lingers before her tent, waiting. She is no longer sure what she exactly she is waiting for. A miracle, perhaps. For a stranger to succeed in something so many have failed at before him; the one man in whom Clarke Griffin has put all her faith to save them all. Lexa's eyes shift up to glance at the blonde Sky leader who sits before another fire across the encampment. That is what has been at the forefront of her mind. Or rather, who is.

It's infuriating, it's despondent, but like it or not, Lexa cannot lie to herself—Clarke Griffin consumes her every waking thought. Lexa can't pinpoint the exact moment it began. It could have been when Clarke begged for mercy for the murderer she was in love with, and then took a knife to him in the same breath. Perhaps it was when she stared so defiantly back at Lexa before she lifted a bottle that very well could have been poison to her lips and drank from it. It may have been when the two of them faced Monaw, when Clarke defied Lexa's every expectation by saving her life, or it could have merely been the first time Clarke approached her and Lexa found herself unable to avert her gaze from a captivatingly beautiful face—either way, the Commander knows that she needs to be concentrating on the war that threatens her people, not the unpredictable, mysterious, intriguing Sky woman. It's dangerous. Lexa knows that.

And yet she can't get her out of her fucking head.

That is maddening.

***

Clarke glances at her twice.

Lexa knows she shouldn't be counting, or even thinking about that.

This is no time to smile. This is the middle of a war. Two hundred and fifty of her people had died two days ago. The Mountain Men could attack at any moment. She and her warriors are waiting on a sign, a signal that tells them to push onwards. It is no time to be happy over such trivial, childish things.

Still. Lexa can't help the small smile that tugs at the corners of her lips when she watches through the flickering flames as Clarke's eyes dart across the camp to meet hers.