Raven POV
It has been two days and as I promised, I got Clarke's radios done. Now all I have to do is find her. After searching almost everywhere, I had an idea where she would be. I walk around for about five minutes before I see her coming out from behind the trees. She sees me and walks toward me. "Hey, were you with Lexa?" I ask and she has a confused look on her face.
"What?" she asks, and I get a little worried.
"Were you visiting Lexa's grave?" I ask again with an eyebrow raised.
"Oh, um, yeah. I haven't visited since I was attacked and just..." I put my hand up to tell her to stop talking.
"It's okay. I get it." I say and see a slight smile as she nods. "So, I got the radios done. They are in my tent because I know you wanted to keep it a secret and didn't want anyone seeing them." I say and she simply nods as we head to my tent. We enter and I turn to her. "So, is there a chance that you can tell me why you needed these?" I ask hoping.
"Raven." she says and tilts her head. I sigh and turn to the table to grab them. I extend my hand to her but quickly retract it.
"You know what? I know you are hurting because of Lexa, but you are pushing everyone away." I say and she looks to the ground. "You aren't even Clarke anymore. Just a few days ago you were acting, normal, but you just keep blocking everyone out. You need to let someone in Clarke, or you are just going to bury yourself." I sigh once again knowing it came out harsher than I meant it to. "Clarke, none of it is your fault." She opened her mouth to argue but I shook my head. "You know this, I know you do. If you keep blaming yourself, then you will never be who you want." I say this time in a lighter tone.
She looks down at the ground again but this time I can see a shadow of a smile. She looks up and now I see the full smile, but also tears in her eyes. She takes a step forward and I don't know how to react. Then she did something that totally shocked me, she hugged me.
"Thank you." she says, and I reached a hand around her. After a couple of seconds, she let go. "And I'm sorry." I look at her confused and she lets a small chuckle escape. "I know I scare you guys. It's just a sort of defense I put up."
"Like a mask." I state and she nods with a smile on her face.
"Raven, thank you for the radios." She says and sticks out her hand. I give them to her, and she smiles once again. "And the lecture. I needed it." She says and makes me smile.
"Any time." I tell her with a laugh.
I didn't really get the info I wanted, but I think I got through to Clarke herself, and that was good enough for now. She turns to leave but stops when she gets to the entrance, turning her head to the side. "Come to my tent in five minutes, alone. I'll explain what I can." She says and I smile as she leaves.
Clarke POV
I get back to my tent and sigh as I sit on my bed. Raven was right, I was pushing everyone away. I hadn't realized how much until she said something. It even got to the point where they are afraid of me. I take a breath and stand as I hear footsteps outside my tent. "Clarke?"
"Come in Raven." I say and she enters. Well, here goes nothing. "You were right Raven. I'm blocking everyone out, and need to let someone in." I say looking her in the eyes. "You also said that I was acting more like 'the old me' a couple of days ago." I say and gulp. "Raven, if you want me to open up, what I tell you can't be known to anyone else." I say and she nods. Her facial expression showing that I had her full attention.
I walk past her and out of my tent, her following. I quickly find Ryder, since he is always close to my tent. "Raven en ai laik going gon a walk. osir beda be back pas sundown" (raven and I are going for a walk. we should be back after sundown) I tell him, and he nods before Raven and I walk towards where I had come from not even an hour ago. After we get into the thick forest, I turn to Raven. "Before we go any further, you need to know what happened the day I went to 'clear my head' I think I said." I say with a smile on my face.
FLASHBACK
Looking at the remains left, I could see that it was a fire that was put out not that long ago. As I rise, I look around and notice a broken twig. It's a long shot, but it's the only thing I have that says I didn't imagine it. I cautiously walk forward and hear a very faint noise just ahead to my left. I do nothing to acknowledge it, and as I approach where I thought I heard it, I pull out my sword and spin. As soon as I do, I can feel my feet get knocked from beneath me and as I start to fall, I grab ahold of an arm while dropping my sword.
As we hit the ground, we roll for a bit before I feel metal against my neck. I can't see anything due to me facing the other way but I hear a gasp and It gives me the perfect opportunity. I use my leg and swipe my opponents from beneath them while grabbing what was my own sword from their hands and reversing our positions. Then, my eyes widened.
"No" I say and take a step back dropping my sword. "You're not real. This has to be one of Cage's tricks." This isn't real it can't be.
"It's me, I'm real." I turn around shaking my head no. "Hey, look at me. This is real." I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn around. "Clarke, I'm real. I'm here." She says and I finally look into her green eyes.
"Lexa?" I say and she nods smiling. I feel tears flowing down my cheeks and she reaches out her arms to bring me into a hug. Instead, I reached up my hand and slapped her.
"You died!" I yell at her and she sighs. "I fucking buried you! You were, but you, how could you," I shake my head.
"Clarke, I had to. The ice nation, they were going to kill you to get to me. Clarke, I swear, none of this was planned but when I got stabbed Titus thought..." I have heard enough and couldn't take it anymore. I reached both my hands up cupping her cheeks and pulling her into a kiss.
"Just shut up." I say through the kiss.
After a few minutes, we both separated for much-needed air and press our foreheads together. "You have no idea what Hell I have been through without you."
"Actually," She says pulling apart. "I have been following you the last couple days." I let out a small chuckle.
"Yeah, you got kind of lazy at hiding when I was fighting the Maun Men." I say and the frown on her face grows.
"Clarke, about that." She gulps. "It looked like you were, playing, with them. That is dangerous. You could have gotten hurt." She says and I smile. She looks at me with confusion as to why I am smiling.
"Obviously you don't know the side effects of the reaper blood Cage gave me." She now looks worried. I sigh and look her in the eyes. "It's nothing that bad. Basically, I'm stronger than I was before and have a little anger problem." I say but that didn't change Lexa's expression. She looked seriously worried and I rolled my eyes before leaning forward and kissing her.
"Clarke, we need to talk abo..." I stop her by kissing her again.
"No more talking. We can do that later." I say and she smiles. I press our lips together once more before grabbing her hand and leading her to a bunker I found about a week ago. Once we get there, I lead her down the ladder and immediately connect our lips in a hungry kiss. God, I missed her. This still doesn't feel real.
We find the bed and I push her down, so she is sitting. A smile grows on her face as I straddle her hips and connect our lips once again. Pushing her back onto the bed, we fight for dominance before she grabs my hips and flips our positions, her winning. It was safe to say that by the end of the night, I knew it was real. She was really here, alive.
END FLASHBACK - (she didn't tell raven all of this but gave her the short version)
"Are you serious? She's alive?" Raven's eyes were huge, and her mouth was open. I laugh with a smile on my face.
"Yeah, as I told you, I didn't believe it at first either." She punched me in the shoulder.
"Dude, that's awesome." she says but then her smile fades.
"But she has to live in hiding. That's why you sneak off so much more." She says talking to herself. I nod and continue walking. We walk for about ten minutes before I reach down moving branches out of the way to reveal a latch. "Wait, is she?" Raven asks pointing to the latch.
"Yeah, I told her to stay here so I could come when I got away. Plus, it's safer than wandering out in the open." I tell her and she smiles as I knock a couple times and open the hatch. "We made a code, so she knows it's me. I'll tell you it later." I say and start to descend the ladder with Raven following.
EEEEEKKKK! LEXA! So, I never really planned to kill her. I was planning on doing a one shot that explained a bit, but you all wanted a second book and I knew I could add more detail to make that happen. -Stephanie