By: ProphecyGirl
The swirling anomaly cracked and popped as Clarke watched in unadulterated terror. The light within grew bright enough to burn, and her vision turned pure white to a fading soundtrack of the woods, and the electric cacophony of the anomaly, and her own shuddering, panicked gasps. Her lungs ached, and she could no longer hear anything but a soft, static whine that buzzed and snapped inside her brain, sizzling as it filled her senses with sensations she'd never dreamed of.
And then the anomaly gave a tiny shudder—no bigger than a small hiccup, really—and exploded in a resonating supernova. The central glowing orb—the heart of it, Clarke thought deliriously, unsure of how she could even begin to know such a thing—slammed to the ground with the force of a massive spaceship and burst into a million flashing, fluttering lights like fireflies as it shattered. The flickering spots collected together like so many sardines and barreled towards Clarke faster than a bullet.
The crepitating chorus of lightning strikes spiderwebbed as it fired into her chest just prior to her registering their existence. Clarke let out a startled ululation as her back violently met a tree and she was effectively pinned there by the steady, flicking fountain of light surging between the empty spreads of her ribcage. The stream filled her from within her aching chest, and her nerves fired off and crackled with their own electricity as the anomaly traveled through her. Her veins became liquid fire as her neurons began a dizzying dance and—changed, somehow.
Clarke began to scream as her body was submerged in the blinding white and brilliant yellow-green stars that continued to crash into her reforming flesh. She was drowning in starlight and pain, her bones cracking as her very marrow was infiltrated. She wept into the void as the Anomaly surged within her; filling her. Becoming her, in fact. Replacing all she was with all she had yet to be, an infinite span of universes, each filled with eternal possibility. Filling her with a knowledge that made her keen in full faith of whatever this merciful, painful, soul-shredding blessing of a thing the Anomaly was.
She heard it, clearer even than her own thoughts had ever been within her own fractured, sluggish brain. She heard the Voice as it called to her from the Heart.
My child. My dear, sweet, brave child. You see it, don't you? What I Am; what you can Be within me, within us. The Anomaly Was. It Is. And it ever shall Be. So far beyond mere mortal imaginings, and yet here you are, no more than simple flesh and bone, standing within the very Light itself. Did you know what it meant, when you called to me and accepted my gift into your heart? Did you understand the Light as it filled you, or had you merely given up? Speak true, child.
I didn't know, Clarke thought aloud. I didn't know for sure; I only knew that.. that I had to know. I had to know.
The Heart of the Anomaly shuddered in gentle waves around her, its walls fluttering in an ethereally affectionate embrace as it chuckled.
You are much like I was, Clarke, when I was mortal. You seem surprised. Did you not imagine that I too, had once been a mortal thing like yourself? A mere speck on the short timeline of a single universe that had no more left a mark than a single, worthless mosquito?
There was no bitterness in the eternal voice; rather a gentle mirth that seemed to indicate it did not regret changing its status in the least.
I yearned for something more all of my life, though I did not live a dull life. In life, I led my people much as you, Clarke; though it was a very different, much older world in a universe that far outdates your own. I spent my mortal life searching for the very same thing you have. I will spare you the details, but I must tell you what you believe you are already taking into account; you are trading an eternity, Clarke Abigail Griffin.
It doesn't matter, Clarke thought stubbornly, unconsciously shrugging off the tendrils of Light swirling and surging around her shoulders. I want this. I want her.
It matters. It makes all the difference, if you understand the choice you are making. If you understand that you are trading one eternity for another. Not just one choice, one moment, or one word for another. Your eternity, Clarke.
Did you understand the choice when you made it? Clarke thought sharply, her eyes narrowing in challenge. The Heart gave a warm, pliant roll around her, subdued particles of Light gently misting across her cheeks and twinkling there slowly as it considered its response.
I could not possibly have known the choice I was making, either, the Heart finally decided. But I do not regret it often.
Clarke relaxed her physical form then, confident that the Heart had spoken its truth to her. Her veins seemed to bubble softly beneath the surface of her skin as she closed her eyes with a serene smile on her lips.
"I accept the Gift of the Light," Clarke spoke, breathed, thought, felt, smelled, and tasted with everything she ever Was, or had Been, or would Be. The Anomaly began to swirl gently around her, turning faster and faster as it squeezed in on Clarke, whose serene smile was still firmly in place. The pressure around her increased, growing faster and tighter and thicker around Clarke's convulsing body.
Clarke's lips parted, and she breathed out a small, pleasant puff of stardust, her rapture overtaking her as she was crushed in the suffocating weight of the Heart of the Anomaly. The world seemed to flatten for a moment, and then the universe followed suit. Time flattened, and space flattened, and suddenly Clarke's head was filled with a new thought.
I can move.
She didn't know how she knew. She didn't know how to do such a thing, even if this was more than the languid dream gifted by a dying body; a strangely disorienting comfort provided during the last violent echos of a death rattle. But there was dying, and then being born, and Clarke felt suddenly peaceful with the knowledge that this was truly neither and both at once. She was being reborn, and in doing so, she had a choice to make.
Clarke sensed that she could—time and space being impossibly flattened as they were—flatten herself as well. And so she did. Clarke concentrated, and with the pain gone, having dissipated with that knowledge, she was able to adjust herself around the bends and curves of the strange Heart of the Anomaly. She formed herself into something beyond her own comprehension, an entire multidimensional plane humans had never even dreamed of, and slid herself between the pages of her own story. As if she'd done nothing else her whole life; as though she knew precisely what she was doing and where she was going.
She thought maybe she'd been waiting her whole life for this moment—the moment where she could take it all back and feel the complete lack of fear that was settling into her strained shoulders. Clarke's life rolled and pitched before her eyes, an old and familiar book that she needed only to vaguely peruse to locate her favorite parts. Or, in this case, her least favorite part. As Clarke looped back into her own timeline, she shuddered and felt sick at the sound that greeted her.
"Skaikru weapon, in the hands of a Skaikru thief. She may even be angry enough to declare war—!"
Clarke hit the floor instinctively in the exact same spot she had the first time around. Trauma had taken the wheel just long enough to lose her precious seconds, and she rolled sideways with a renewed determination to rewrite the story. Not her own story; the story of someone far more important, and worthy, if you asked Clarke.
And if, in the process of that, Clarke was able to rewrite her own story, and the story of her people as well? That was just a bonus.
She bolted across the room, but this time, she headed for the windows, and dove behind a couch as another shot rang off the walls. It hit a multilevel candelabra, and bits of metal and wax flew in every direction. Behind Titus' enraged face, the door opened, and Clarke kicked over a statue from the floor at the same time, effectively covering the noise that would have alerted Titus to the new presence.
It was the last thing Clarke was able to do before she caught sight of wide, enraged green eyes and felt herself choke.
"Lexa," she gasped out. Her chest shattered into a million shards, raining down inside as her body froze in disbelief.
"Titus!" Came the snapped, deafening command in response. Titus, his face a mask of shock and fear, dropped the gun instantly, his hands shaking as he dropped to his knees before his Commander. He lowered his head, hunching over himself in deference.
"Forgive me, Heda," he groveled. "I did not mean to hurt—"
"Yes. You did," Lexa hissed out with a clenched jaw and flashing eyes. "Yu jomp em op, yu jomp ai op."
[You attack her, you attack me.]
Her sentries had rushed into the room behind her, but had then paused, unsure of what was happening or what they were meant to do about it.
"Take him away," Lexa snarled at them, her face feral with rage. They obediently approached Titus, who was still in the process of surrendering with tears streaming down his face; horrified by his actions.
But not, Clarke thought with some venom, as horrified as he was by his results the first time around.
Lexa quickly turned to Clarke, her legs already carrying her as quickly as possible to her side. The rage on her face melted instantly—as it always had when she turned to Clarke after a conflict with someone else—and she fell to her knees, Clarke's name a gasp on her breath when she saw blood.
"You're hurt." There was a quiver in her lower lip, and Clarke let out a deliriously inappropriate laugh as she reached out and cupped her cheek gently in response.
"I don't care," Clarke chuckled, her free hand finding Lexa's other cheek, framing her stunned face and pulling it close as she sat up. "I don't care."
"Klark," Lexa protested; but it was weak and there was a smile curving the corners of her lips despite herself as Clarke silenced her with a kiss. It was languid and lingering; lazy as Clarke savored the one thing she'd believed she would never, ever experience again: a living, breathing Lexa in her arms.
When they separated after a long time, Lexa's face was flushed. Her eyes sparkled mischievously, and there was a deep blush running in streaks across both of her cheeks as she tried to control her slightly labored breathing. Clarke looked very much the same way, until she realized the place beneath Lexa's hand on her thigh was painful. She hadn't even realized the shot from Titus had connected with her as she dove away from the door.
She looked down quickly to see her blood—strangely red, a sight she'd long since forgotten about after so many years—leaking between Lexa's slightly slackened fingers. Lexa, remembering herself after the distraction of Clarke's kiss, quickly clamped down on the wound again, a look of panic taking over her face.
"Konge em fisa op!" She snapped towards the hallway. A chorus of "Sha, Heda"s rang back in echoed reply, and Clarke tilted her head up to make sure she she was continuing to hold Lexa's gaze.
[Get her a healer! / Yes, Commander]
"I'm okay," Clarke insisted, reaching up to brush several loose tendrils back off Lexa's sweat-coated forehead. She didn't know how she was okay—not with a bullet lodged firmly in her thigh, anyway—but she was. In fact, it barely even hurt anymore. Which was strange, granted, but she wasn't really in the mood to ask too many more questions about her new state quite yet.
She had Lexa back. Alive, and flushed with exertion, and squeezing her thigh just slightly too hard in her panic. Clarke had never been happier; and so it was extra jarring when a healer was brought in, and Lexa's hand moved out of the way to reveal Clarke's blood-smeared thigh.
Just a blood-smeared thigh.
"There is—ah, no wound, Heda," the healer said hesitantly, looking vaguely fearful. She was a young thing, probably new to the high-level position in Polis, and Clarke gave her a gentle, reassuring smile.
"Impossible." Lexa frowned. She leaned forward, her eyes widening in disbelief as she quickly and repeatedly scanned the length of Clarke's leg and even the surrounding floor; as though perhaps the wound had fallen off and needed retrieving before it could be attended to. Clarke couldn't help a small smile at the look of confused dismay on Lexa's face.
"Klark," Lexa scolded. "This is not funny! I saw it myself, you were sho—"
She cut herself off then, and seemed to think better of sounding insane in front of her healer and the other various attendants that lingered in the hallway; the latter likely hoping for scraps of information on the day's drama to bring home to their dinner tables. Lexa closed her lips tightly and glanced to the healer, her voice taking on a slightly less stoic version of her standard Commander tone.
"I had not seen it closely until now. Thank you, Melli," Lexa gave a short nod, dismissing the girl.
When Lexa's eyes met Clarke's again, they were filled with confusion, and concern; and thickly laden just around the edges, there was the faintest hint of fright. It made Clarke's gut twist up in tight knots, to see Lexa's gazing at her with such unsurety, such fear.
"I—can we talk? Somewhere.. more, uh, private?" Clarke requested earnestly, keeping her voice soft enough that only Lexa could hear her. Lexa merely nodded, still looking at Clarke's leg with concern every so often, expecting the wound to return.
♾
When they reached the Commander's bedroom, they both blushed at the sight that awaited them. The bedding lay scattered across the bed messily, still in the spot it had come to rest as they'd reluctantly left the bed after three consecutive rounds of lovemaking. They'd left reluctantly, and the corners of the top blankets were rumpled and pulled just slightly further than the others—marking their matching, impossibly slow slide from the warm safety of the oversized bed. Grasping the tendrils of the topmost shared blanket as though they could use it to hold onto one another from a distance; like if they each pulled hard enough and refused to let go, the soft blanket would stretch from Polis to Arkadia and allow the electricity between them to travel the distance they had faced going forward.
Lexa cleared her throat, her hands finding one another behind her back as she moved from the bed—where the faintest scents of sweat and sex lingered still—and stood before the window, quietly waiting for Clarke's explanation.
To Lexa's credit, despite Clarke's tale sounding completely insane, she didn't interrupt even once, and in fact she barely so much as blinked as she took it in.
When Clarke had made her way through Titus' bullet, and the conclave afterwards; when she had spoken of Praimfiya, and becoming a natblida herself, and finding Madi; when she had articulated the tale of Wonkru and the subsequent rise and fall of Blodreina; when she had tried to muffle the catch in her throat while relaying a lifetime that Monty and Harper had now yet to spend looking for answers; when she had slow-breathed her way through the loss of her body and the intensity of her personal, private battle with Josephine Lightbourne; when she had admitted to Lexa all of her sins, she had gazed quietly then at the stalwart, impressive woman who had changed everything for her, and she slowly lowered her head in veneration.
It had never occurred to Clarke to lie to Lexa and hide her pain, but she had certainly underestimated what all of her choices had cost her. Not to mention how much of the wretched agony that any one of her mistakes might still cause—if she ever slowed down enough to think about them, as she was forced to do now. She wavered more than once, but Lexa still stood, silent and stoic as ever, her face unreadable as she listened.
Sanctum. Madi, Sheidheda.
Abby..
God, Clarke had briefly thought; her mother was still alive. She was behind the walls of Arkadia right now, and the thought made Clarke weave internally with emotion.
The Flame. It had been destroyed—and perhaps Lexa's eyes tried to well at that; not because of the destruction of the Flame, but for the pain it had caused Clarke. For the fact that it had nearly caused the death of Madi, and for the fact that it had been, as Clarke herself had said—
"All I had left of you." Clarke's voice was thick with emotion, and Lexa worked her jaw slightly—not in the way she did when she was angry, but the way she did as she had gazed over a field of hundreds of dead warriors just outside Arkadia. Trying to hold back her horror, her grief, the distress that welled in the back of her throat that was not at all Commander-like, as her heart nearly bled for Clarke's suffering.
Clarke swallowed hard and finished off with the strange temporal Anomaly, and the exploding ball of light, and the way she'd been able to slide between the pages of her own book, thinner than a sheet of paper herself. When she was done, and all of the cards were on the table, and she looked at Lexa for—she wasn't even sure what. For comfort, or disapproval; rage or elation or perhaps—yes, that was it.
Absolution, Clarke's mind whispered to her suddenly. That was the one; and she searched Lexa's eyes for it, but didn't find it. Rather, she found only disbelief and—was that wonder? Awe, perhaps?
"Lexa?" Clarke murmured, her gaze flickered back and forth rapidly between either of Lexa's lush, verdant eyes unsurely.
"And you believe this.. Anomaly, is responsible for healing your wound as well?" Lexa finally murmured, her eyes searching Clarke's right back.
Clarke shrugged a little. "What else could it be?"
Lexa didn't respond; rather, she began to pace back and forth, her hands still linked behind her back and concern lining her furrowed brow.
"You don't seem appropriately concerned about that," Lexa finally replied. "Which concerns me."
"I'm not concerned about anything now. I know the future, Lexa. I was there. I know what we need to know to fix all of it. You're still here, still alive. I did that, Lexa. I did," Clarke implored. "I fixed that, and together, we can fix everything else, too. We can live this time."
Lexa paused, looking at her dubiously. "Can we? What about you, Clarke? What if this Anomaly has done something to you, something harmful?"
"It hasn't," Clarke waved her hand dismissively before approaching Lexa with an earnest look on her face. "Lexa, please. I know you're worried, but right now, we have a fascist dictator to take care of, a thirteenth clan to restore, and a City of Light to destroy. Can we discuss the Anomaly and any.. side effects.. maybe after we save our people?"
Lexa didn't look thrilled about it, and she made no effort to hide it, either. However, she knew Clarke was right about the more pressing priorities, and though she intensely feared this mystical anomaly that had allowed Clarke to rewind an entire lifetime for herself and everyone else, Clarke was also right about it being less of an immediate threat than others they were facing.
"Can't we just.. be thankful for this moment, right now? It's all I've wanted since the day I watched you die in my arms, Lexa," Clarke was earnest; pleading, even. "Please, I just—let me have this, here, now. We can talk later about.. what it all means for us, okay?"
Lexa swallowed her nerves as she had done so many times before, stuffed her worries and fears down deep inside her chest, where she could pretend they weren't weighing her down, and nodded just slightly.
Clarke smiled then—just barely—and tentatively put her arm out. Lexa, who was by then extraordinarily tired, and near heartbroken by the future Clarke had painted.
As Clarke watched, Lexa slowly crumpled and caved. The facade of the Commander shattered and fell away, and only Lexa remained. Small, and exhausted, and having felt an entirely new level of lonely after her body had parted from Clarke's, Lexa once more met Clarke's body with her own, craving the contact more than ever, in a way that made her feel ravenous and mindless with her desire.
Breasts pressed together, hips met, and they each let out a soft gasp in unison against the others' lips. Clarke slid her fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her neck and pulling her close, deepening the kiss quickly. Their tongues danced together, and Clarke sucked teasingly on Lexa's, drawing another soft gasp from her lips. She barely felt an awareness that she was shedding her own clothing in between the tugs and pulls at Lexa's. They were somehow even more desperate than they had been a few hours—or was that a lifetime?—ago.
They tore at each others' garments with a deep and feral craving, and Clarke moved almost inhumanly fast, determined to worship this beautiful, heaving, breathless version of Lexa that she had never before had a chance to know. She pressed the Commander back onto the bed, her hands tugging the already-untied shirt down her arms just as she had the first time they'd fallen onto this bed together. She ducked her head, tracing Lexa's collarbone with her tongue, not lingering in the slightest, looking to devour the love of her life whole and taste every subtle flavor, inhale every intoxicating scent Lexa had to offer.
Lexa moaned deeply, arching her back as Clarke nibbled, licked, and sucked her way down her body, leaving a faint trail of bruises and saliva slicks marking Lexa as hers. Lexa was writhing within moments, even before Clarke slid to her knees on the floor and brought both of their pants down with her. It didn't seem to matter that it had been perhaps two hours since their glimmering, writhing bodies had been pressed together in all sorts of delightfully dirty sorts of ways—Lexa felt as though she'd never made love before in her life as Clarke covered her body and pressed her into the pile of pelts.
She shuddered as Clarke pushed her thighs further apart and unceremoniously buried her face in the Commander's slick heat, licking and lapping at her swollen folds like a woman possessed. Clarke seemed determined to savor every single drop of Lexa that she could this time around, and doing her part to help, Lexa drew her knees up. She let out a soft yelp of desperation when Clarke's tongue teased a frustrating path around her throbbing clit, but offered no direct relief to the needy, twitching little button.
Lexa's hands fluttered in the air with an unrecognized craving, unsure whether they wanted to cup Clarke's head, or play with her own neglected aching nipples, or just grip the bed beneath her for dear life as Clarke once again flew her past the farthest reaches of the universe.
Clarke took her on another tour around their new, shared galaxy, making stars explode behind Lexa's blinking eyelids and deep beneath her trembling chest after only moments. Lexa let out a soft, startled cry as she came down from the gentle orgasm she hadn't expected. She could feel the cathartic tears that fell from Clarke's reddened eyes and smeared across the smooth inner flesh of her flexing thighs, and her heart shattered as she struggled to sit up.
She cupped her hand worriedly over the back of Clarke's head gently, whispering with concern, "Clarke? Look at me, please?"
Clarke did then, her blue eyes tinged a soft greyish-aquamarine color, floating in gently-forming waves, like a peaceful bay preparing for an approaching storm. She wrapped her arms around Lexa's hips, her eyes watering rapidly and overflowing as she leaned in, the tears dropping onto Lexa's bare thighs as she lay her burdens down.
"I'm sorry," Clarke murmured, shame overtaking her face. "I just—I can't believe you're really here. I—I lost you, I went so long without you, and now.. You're here, and I can see you, hear you. I can touch you, feel you beneath my fingers, taste you on my tongue, and you're so.. fucking real. I—I can smell you, that lavender-scented beeswax stuff in your hair, and that—that beautiful, leather and charcoal, that woodsy scented oil you wear. God, Lexa, it's driving me crazy because I never thought I would ever see yo—s-see you ag—"
Clarke went weak then, her sobbing face buried in Lexa's lap as she gripped her hips desperately. Lexa stroked her golden hair, her own tears spilling over as she slid from the bed, settling her ass on Clarke's lap and wrapping her legs around her. Clarke settled back on her knees, her hands instinctually sliding around Lexa's ass to support her as she laid kisses across Clarke's soaked, salty cheeks.
Lexa's arms wrapped loosely around the back of Clarke's neck as she continued to pepper tiny kisses across the damp curves of her face, the tip of her tongue peeking out and gently teasing against her skin every so often.
"Ain niron, you have nothing to be sorry for. I'm the one who's sorry, Clarke. I don't understand why my spirit would have fled, at the moment of my life I was the most happy. It—it had to be a mistake, you know that, right?" Lexa asked softly, her voice thick with shame and sorrow. "I did not mean to leave you."
[My love]
"It wasn't your fault, Lexa. I—it took so long, but I found you. I never stopped searching, and somehow, I found you again, and you're here now. I won't let you go this time; I won't lose you again, Lexa."
"I'm not losing you again, either," Lexa responded softly; but there was a sadness lingering in her eyes when she said their new truth, her hand gently stroking Clarke's flawless, uninjured thigh.
Clarke slid her hand over hers, guiding it lower as she leaned forward, pressing Lexa's tattooed back into the footboard and kissing her deeply. Lexa moaned as her fingers were guided over Clarke's soaked center, and she carefully extended a long, thin finger, running the tip down her slightly sticky parted lips. Clarke shuddered and let go, sliding both of her hands under Lexa's ass instead and digging her nails in as she rolled them together.
Without breaking contact, Clarke pulled them over sideways, forcing Lexa's back to connect with the floor this time as she stretched out against her. She took a moment to grind their hips together, and Lexa responded by sliding her finger over her clit and past Clarke's fluttering entrance, drawing a deep groan from the blonde.
Clarke struggled to bring her mind back into focus; thankfully, all it took was the brief memory of Lexa's stunned face after being shot, and Clarke was able to forget what Lexa was doing between her thighs—not to mention decide to make Lexa forget what she'd been doing, as well.
She moved quickly, settling her body between Lexa's spread thighs as she grabbed her wrists and leaned forward, pinning her arms to her hips and forcing Lexa's knees to lift over her body and Clarke's shoulders. Lexa let out a surprised gasp and shuddered, her hips rolling up with fresh arousal as Clarke held her tightly and ran her tongue slowly up the inside of first one thigh and then the other.
Clarke took her time, kissing and licking from one thigh to the other; tracing an excruciating path back and forth across Lexa's swollen, needy heat repeatedly as Lexa squirmed and whined beneath her. Her hips jerked violently in search of the pressure she so needed and her wrists were already sore, with telltale Nightblood rushing to the swaths of skin that would shortly be decorated with dark bruises in the shapes of Clarke's fingers.
Lexa arched desperately, and Clarke decided she could spend more time on teasing later; after all, they had all the time in the world now. She flattened her tongue and steadily slid it through Lexa's dripping heat deeply, gathering every drop she could find and collecting it for herself. Beneath her, Lexa writhed and pulled against her hands, mumbling a slurred mixture of breathless "Klark"s, needy "please"s, and every so often, a pleading "more, more."
Clarke tugged Lexa as tightly down to her mouth as possible, pulling down on her restrained wrists until she was nearly vibrating with arousal. One leg had wrapped over Clarke's shoulder and around the back of her head; the other was bent into midair, fluttering there unsurely as Clarke used her shoulders to force Lexa's hips to roll higher. Lexa made a guttural sound as she was tilted back without being freed, and Clarke's tongue plunged into her depths and swirled against all of Lexa's most sensitive, secret spots.
Lexa keened, her toes flexing in midair and her leg vibrating as it folded instinctually. Clarke's tongue moved too quickly and erratically for Lexa to have any clue of where to expect it, or when, or with what pressure. Plunging into her sodden, clenching depths with penetrating force; tracing irregular, delicate circles interrupted by teasing flicks and slow massages with deliciously perfect alternating pressure; curling between her swollen lower lips and guiding them between careful teeth for a gentle, playful nip—all of which made Lexa feel like her body was splitting open to draw Clarke's entire being into herself.
Lexa writhed in ecstasy, her thoughts exploding behind her eyes as Clarke worshipped her body with her own. Clarke was desperate to make known all the ways she had missed Lexa, and Lexa was all too happy to accept Clarke's confessions and absolve her of all of her guilt about all the love they hadn't had a chance to make.
Clarke drank her down like a healing salve or a fine wine—savoring every aspect of her flavor, her texture and her aroma. Burning up in her heat, and toying her to the edge time and time again. Tormenting her wanting, pulsing little bud until Lexa lay spread uselessly on the floor before her, whining mindlessly and weeping her name tiredly.
Clarke nuzzled her thigh softly before wrapping her lips around her overstimulated and unsatisfied clit, finally giving her what she'd been craving. Lexa came in an intense, violent shudder that practically forced her fervent hips to slam into her own shoulders. She quaked beneath and against Clarke, every muscle she had fluttering into a powerful series of spasms that seemed to last forever.
Clarke never stopped lapping at Lexa's clenching sex, following her through her crisis and rapidly ratcheting her up to another.
Lexa whined loudly when she realized what Clarke was up to, but her needy center betrayed her, grasping at Clarke's proffered tongue as it prodded the root of her throbbing clit. Tears fell from Clarke's face, but neither acknowledged or even noticed as she quickly tilted Lexa over the precipice one more time into oblivion.
Lexa let out a short sob when she came for the third time, her arms spreading out weakly to her sides when Clarke finally released them. The blonde laid a soft kiss on Lexa's still-pulsing heat before shimmying up alongside her, propping her head up on her own elbow. She gazed down at the still, satisfied body, and couldn't imagine living with herself if she'd been stupid enough to turn down the Anomaly's gift.
She had almost lived a life where she wasn't here watching the candlelight flickering off the soft curves of Lexa's limp body in the darkening evening. The thought was physically painful, and Clarke still could not see any price she wouldn't have been willing to pay for the very thing she now had in her grasp. Clarke slid her warm body against Lexa's as they snuggled into the carpet. Clarke's arms went around Lexa, who settled her back against Clarke's front with a soft shudder of a sigh.
"You didn't get to—"
Clarke placed her finger delicately over Lexa's lips, hushing her gently. Lexa just gazed at her with a sleepy affection, her body unconsciously snuggling closer into Clarke's reassuring arms.
"I won't ever leave you," came a sleepy whisper from Lexa's lips, as the last of the day's sunlight slipped away from them. "I won't know how to, even when I am old and grey, and you are still beautiful and could not possibly still want me. Perhaps you'll want me to leave, but I still won't be able to."
Clarke continued stroking light, random shapes into Lexa's chest, kissing the side of her neck before whispering in her ear, "That won't ever happen. I'll always want you, Lexa. You could be old, and grey, and scarred and hideous. You could be big as a house, covered in slime. You could have three heads and seven eyes, and I would still want you every bit as badly as I do now."
Lexa chuffed softly, and Clarke pressed a rough kiss to her jawline in reply. Lexa looked at her knowingly. "Clarke, that is a lovely thought, but you can't tell me you don't fear the day when I am gone, and you are still here. Can you truly say you know that you will never regret what you have given up for me? That you sacrificed your final peace for a few years of—"
Lexa's deceptively innocent looking eyes searched Clarke's desperately, almost begging Clarke for the kindness of a lie; but Clarke had no kind lies to offer just then, only the truth, and Lexa knew as much.
"Lexa, look at me," Clarke started, her voice a breathy whisper as she faced her, gently wiping a stray hair off her forehead. "I will never regret trading my eternity for a lifetime with you. Understand? I would do it again and again. I would do anything, if I knew the path I was setting down would lead me back to you."
Lexa nodded slightly, her eyes filling with tears at Clarke's intensity, but she was worrying her lower lip between her teeth a bit clumsily, her eyes glazed with the weight of her thoughts and her physical exhaustion.
"What about when I die, Clarke? I will die someday, as we all must. And you.."
"Won't," Clarke supplied quietly. Lexa nodded, and after a moment, Clarke replied once more with a serious, solemn look on her face, "I'll never regret trading my eternity for a lifetime with you, Lexa."
Lexa sniffled quietly, deciding to let herself believe that was true; for the moment, at least. The truth was, she couldn't imagine a time wouldn't come when Clarke regretted giving up death, giving up her own infinity for Lexa. She couldn't imagine a life where Clarke wouldn't be bitter about gaining an immortality that had clearly weighed on others who had achieved such a thing; much less one where she had done so only to watch Lexa die once more. To lose everyone else she had ever loved as well, and be unable to join them in death; unable to lay her head in peace ever again.
Now Clarke's fight would never be over, but Lexa's would still end someday. Lexa wanted to let this weigh on her, but then Clarke was again looking at her with such adoration and relief, and Lexa suddenly felt that, if anyone had earned the right to mold their own destiny, it was surely Clarke. And it was no more Lexa's right to stand in the way of Clarke's choice than it was Titus's right to stand in the way of Lexa's ability to choose for herself.
And so Lexa quietly rolled into Clarke's warm embrace, trying to accept Clarke's situation for the gift Clarke obviously felt it was. She tried not to worry about the sort of future that might await a woman with a heart that beat solely for her loved ones; tried not to think about how extraordinarily difficult that would be for Clarke now that she lived in a world where she was guaranteed to outlive every last one of them.
Lexa tried only to be thankful for the second chance and the growing familiarity of the feel of Clarke's bare body fitting in so perfectly against her own.
She tried not to worry about tomorrow; tried to just Be.
But as she ran her fingertips idly over the wound that had left no trace on Clarke's unblemished skin, she could feel a soft static crackling just under the surface; an aggressive, simmering spark that seemed to be singing and humming from within Clarke's sacrificed cells. It felt strange; magnetic, but threatening, and Lexa unconsciously shivered when she realized an uncomfortable truth.
The Anomaly. Whatever it was that had granted the power for Clarke to return to the moment, had given Clarke extraordinary healing powers and apparently, eternal life to boot; it had other reasons for doing what it had. Lexa couldn't be sure what they were, but she was sure that Clarke had known that well before she accepted this 'gift' of a second chance.
She was also sure Clarke would live long enough to regret the trade. But for now? For now, Lexa was there, and Clarke was there. Death had, in fact, not been the end—not that time, anyway.
Lexa took some small measure of comfort in that, and then in a secret whispered softly from her lips to her lover's ear, as they lay in the dark, entwined around each other as they moved forward, towards whatever came next, and then whatever came after that.