You have been wandering the woods for a while now, doing what you must to stay alive, but killing rabbits and other small animals seems easy compared to what you have done. The image replays itself in your memory every night when you try to sleep. The one that you stood and watched as hundreds of people; Men, women, and children, died.

For a few days, you try to let Bellamy's parting words sink in. You try to let his forgiveness wash over you and make you feel like what you did was forgivable.

It wasn't.

It isn't.

But it was the right thing to do.

You did it for your people and in that moment that you were stood in the control room, it dawned on you how Lexa could betray you so easily for her people. She had to do what was best for them, just like you had to.

But you had made an agreement with yourself not to think about that… any of it.

It doesn't take long before you have mapped out most of the area that you were going to stick to. You avoid Mount Weather at all costs because you cannot bear to go back there. For the first two days, you did entertain the idea of going and burying all of those people who you killed, but as you start making your way to the mountain, you realise that you should probably just leave them. Let it be their final resting place.

The first time that you encounter any Grounders, you panic. The only weapon you had was a small pistol and there was a group of about five of them stood in front of you. You don't want to waste ammo and some of them you recognise, others you don't. They seemed as lost as you did, as if no one had thought to tell them that the alliance was over now that the war was as well. They moved past you after a minute, nodding their heads to you in acknowledgment, respect maybe. Ever since then, you could have sworn that you could see movement out of the corner of your eye every now and again. When you realised that they were not hunting you, you relax and eventually, you don't see them anymore.

It is difficult getting used to living alone, but you do it.

Winter came and you set up a temporary camp for yourself. You collected materials to make a tent and stored some food for when the animals would be less inclined to come out of their dens. You store water and try and keep a pile of wood as dry as possible so that you could continue to feed a fire. You realise pretty quickly that you should have started preparing for winter a lot sooner because you don't have any kind of blankets or anything really to protect you from the cold. You light a fire inside of your tent, making sure that the flames won't get too high, you let yourself fall asleep each night, and each night you suffer in the cold, it seems to get easier to drift off.

Nightmares don't haunt you as much now, but you still see their burnt bodies when you close your eyes. You can still smell their irradiated flesh with your first and last breath of the day.

Sometimes you dream about those eyes, framed in black war paint, like a light in the darkness.

Xx

Several months have passed now and you wonder if you have been alone for too long. You made peace with your decisions. You aren't sure when, but you did. You choose to venture further outwards, taking one last trip back to Camp Jaha before you leave. You never enter the camp, you just watch. Your mother is there and it seems as if she is happy. Raven and Wick are often together and you hope that something happened there because after everything, Raven deserves to find happiness. Bellamy is there too, but he never seems to interact with anyone for very long. You don't see Octavia or Lincoln.

Looking down on the camp, you know that you made the right choice to leave. You wouldn't have been able to be the person that they would have expected you to be when you were so fresh from the war. You wouldn't have been able to have dealt with the judgemental looks, nor the forgiving glances. You wouldn't have been able to be the leader that they deserved. They seem to be doing alright without you, and although you know that one day you will return to them and they will probably take you back with open arms, you had one more thing to deal with.

And this one was a lot more personal.

Xx

With your goal in mind, it doesn't take long until you manage to find a Grounder whilst he was sleeping. You asked him to take a message. Three words, that's all it was, but it did the trick.

You are heading South West when you look up and see her silhouette stood proud and tall against the setting sun. Your heart thuds heavily in your chest as she looks at you from the top of the hill. She doesn't move and neither do you.

Eventually, you sink to your knees as tears take your body for the first time since your first night away from the Sky People, and she moves towards you. Her strides are long and each footfall has a purpose. Just before she reaches you, she gestures her hand to the surrounding woods, and you assume that it was towards her guard. Her hand then extends and you take it, letting her pull you up to your feet.

"Clarke." She says, her voice as soft as you remember it. You finally look up into her eyes, surrounded in the war paint that you have been dreaming about more and more lately. They sparkle as they look at you and your heartbeat pounds.

"Lexa." You try to regain your composure, but it isn't working. You look down, unable to meet her gaze in such a state. She reaches out and cups your cheek in her hand, making you to look at her.

"Come with me." She tells you, wrapping her arm around you so that her hand rests on your lower back, guiding you as you both walked. You wanted to lean into her so badly, but you honestly had no idea where you stood with her. She leads you back towards what you assume is Polis.

It is bigger than the Grounder camp from the war, but you expected that. There were people bustling about and Lexa led you down what looked like a market street. There were all kinds of goods on offer and you are quite pleasantly surprised at the people here. As you go deeper into the city, you notice a change. One side seems to be more like Tondc, a settlement of villagers going about their daily lives but on a grander scale, while the other side was just like the Grounder army camp that you had become accustomed to.

When you get to her tent in the center of the city, she takes off her armour and undoes her jacket and you can't help but stare at her because she is just as beautiful as you remember. Maybe you didn't have a chance to really appreciate it the last time you were with her, but some how she had engrained herself into your memory.

"I have heard stories about you, Clarke," She starts and you watch her. She isn't looking at you. "Is it true what you did at Mount Weather?" You nod because you don't trust your voice. "I know that must have been difficult for you. I am sorry that I put you in the position where you had to do that." She tells you and you don't want her pity. "It took a lot of strength." Her pity is brief and replaced by respect.

"We do what we must to save our people, and then we bear the burden, so that they don't have to." She looks at you finally and you see all of the emotion behind her eyes. Regret, sorrow, fear and what you hope is love. "You got my message, I assume?" Lexa nods and you see the edges of her lips twitch into a smile. "I want to thank you for having a team of your people follow me while I was alone in the woods."

"Our alliance may be broken, but there is so much that we do not know about this world, what new dangers may surface now that the Mountain Men are gone. The woods are never going to be a safe place to be alone." She takes her jacket off and moves towards you. You let your eyes linger on her toned body hidden by her tank top. "I don't know what I would do if anything happened to you." She places her hand on yours where it is resting on the table. Her voice is soft and you feel your heart stutter. Her eyes show her vulnerability and you crack, kind of hating yourself for letting her back in so quickly. But this is Lexa. She never says or does anything that she doesn't mean.

You fall against her and she catches you in her strong arms as you let your head fall into her shoulder. Your tears fall again and you hate yourself for being so weak in front of her, but part of you knew it would be like this as she whispers 'I understand' into your hair. You knew that she would be the only person to know what you have been through, she would know the emotional toll it took on you and part of you wonders why you didn't come to her much sooner. You need her a heck of a lot more than you thought you did.

You don't know how long you two stand like that, but she makes no attempts to move away. Eventually, you pull back a little, arms still resting against her chest and your body still pressed into her. She looks into your eyes and you know now more than ever that you had made the right choice in just about every aspect of your time on Earth.

Lexa tilts her head down a little so that your lips are a breath apart, waiting for you to make the first move this time. Her breath is warm and coming out in short, shallow pants and you feel that reflected in her chest.

You close the distance and she immediately sucks your bottom lip into her mouth. Her tongue runs over it and you part your lips to grant her more access. The kiss is passionate, yet tentative at first as she starts to back you up a little, until you are sat on the table. It wasn't until your butt meets the firm surface that you realised Lexa had been holding you up completely.

Her hand cups the back of your neck and tangles in the hair there. When you are sure that she isn't going to move away from you, you slip your hands to the inside of Lexa's jacket and rest your hands on her shoulders. You feel the soft skin there is marred with scars and your heart swells when you think about everything that she has been through. All the battles that she has fought, all of the wounds she has suffered through.

Lexa pulls away and leans her forehead against yours. Her eyes are closed and her lips are pulled in between her teeth. You let your hands fall to the where the swell of her breasts would be if it weren't for the binding she wore. She is savouring the moment, while you daren't close your eyes in case she runs.

"Lexa," You say her name to draw her out, "Look at me."

"I can't." She whispers. A beat passes between you before she continues. "I don't want this all to be a dream."

"I'm not going anywhere unless you tell me to." You tell her just as quietly because right now, nothing else in the world exists. It is just you and her.

"You have always been my weakness, Clarke." You smile at her words and kiss her briefly once more, pulling away from her. You remember the conversation you had over Finn's burning body like it was yesterday.

"We have a lot to talk about." Her eyes open and she nods.

"We do." She steps back and smiles at you as she takes you in. "But how about for now, we clean up and rest. I imagine you are exhausted." She walks to the side of the tent and pours water into a bowl, offering you a wash cloth. You watch her in silence as she takes off her war paint with practiced ease, but you notice a dull stain on her face where the paint would go. "How long have you been in the woods for? It must have been at least six moons." She turns to you and gestures that she has finished.

"It was about eight I think."

You start cleaning yourself. It had been a while since you had a chance to just stop and take care of your appearance and you are slightly embarrassed that you were in such a state. You are pleasantly surprised when you feel a cloth against your neck where Lexa is helping you. It is a tenderness that you knew she possessed, given the way she speaks to you, but you didn't expect it now.

She pulls at your now worn leather jacket from behind and you drop your cloth to allow her to remove it. She cleans your arms with the same softness before offering you a clean bowl of water and some privacy.

"Lexa?" You call to her as you are pulling your clothes back on, happy to be clean again.

"Yes, Clarke?" she responds almost immediately and when you turn around, you see that she is led on a bed of furs, her hands on her stomach with her eyes closed. It is the most relaxed you have ever seen her.

"Was it easy for you to walk away?" you ask quietly because you're not sure that you want to know the answer, but something nagging in the back of your mind makes you ask. "To pick your head over your heart?"

"As Commander," She opens her eyes and looks directly at you, "it was easy."

"But as Lexa?" She looks down and you stand there awkwardly playing with your hands.

"How can you ask that? I thought you knew." She says just as quietly as your question. There is a moment before she says, "It tore me apart. I have never done anything more difficult."

Your heart leaps into your throat and you want to cry for her and the pain that you know she went through because it was the same pain that you felt as you watched her walk away from the mountain, from you.

You don't say anything as you join her on the furs. She lifts her arm when you put your head on her shoulder and drape your arm across her stomach. She connects your fingers, bringing them up to her mouth and she places a firm kiss to them.