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When the Ice nation grounder killed her it was practically an act of mercy. Clarke was too tired to fight anymore. She had gripped her mother before she left Camp Jaha that morning for patrol, hugging her fiercely, feeling what Lexa must have felt a hundred times, marching into battle. She understood now, why Lexa had steeled herself so often against death. Asking for it, almost. Goading it.
She was ready now. She hadn’t been before. But the Sky people could rely on Bellamy and Raven and her mother, Octavia and whoever else survived this skirmish in the woods. The threat of Alie and the City of Light was a distant memory to everyone but Clarke. In the six months since Lexa’s death the grounders had dissipated into warring factions once again, but now there was a thirteenth clan.
Maybe…
A word whispered from a great distance.
Maybe…
The last thing she saw was Octavia’s desperate, dirty face hovering over her, blocking the sun...
…and then her eyes opened in a familiar, gray steel city.
Her heart pounded—she hadn’t expected to feel a heartbeat after death. She looked down at her shaking hands, clean now of blood from the skirmish.
Dying had been so easy it was almost as if she had willed it.
A huge, metal contraption with wings flew across the sky. A plane; she remembered this terminology from an old Earth studies class on the Ark.
The city wasn’t silent like the last time she’d been here. The vibration of human speech came across the courtyard where she lay. A huge corporate building rose up in front of her. A statue of a man, made all of muscle with two giant wings, stood in the center of the square.
She climbed to her feet, carefully at first, but standing was easier than she’d expected it to be for the dead. She touched her face and felt the familiar grooves and crevices, free now of dirt and blood. Pocketed though, with the scars she had collected since falling from the sky.
She was the same. Just crossed over now, from whatever her life had been.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
Someday…
Clarke closed her eyes. She smiled. She let the sound of that voice wash over her.
“I was wondering when you would come,” she said, not looking, not yet. Reveling in this moment of complete clarity, and the conviction with which she knew Lexa was there without having to see. So different, from all the times the commander had appeared in dreams, or Clarke had heard her voice in the shadows of the woods at midnight, urging her to look, to see, I’m right here Clarke, I’m right here, I swear, just—look—
All the mind games grief played.
“I would never keep you waiting, Clarke,” Lexa promised, her voice closer now. If Clarke turned around she’d be able to touch her, but she wanted to feel Lexa first.
A hand on her shoulder. “Clarke?” asked Lexa, a little confused now, voice tinged with a bit of hurt.
Clarke smiled and flew around into her arms.
“Oh!” Lexa gasped as she caught Clarke around the waist and gripped her tightly.
Clarke buried her face in Lexa’s shoulder and clung to her neck. The woodsy smell of Lexa covered in dirt and sweat had been replaced with something sweet and soapy. She pulled back and stared at Lexa in wonder. She had changed out of her commander attire and wore an ankle-length black dress split up to the knee. Her hair was down and loose.
All told, she looked something like a soft virgin princess.
“Careful, Commander,” Clarke whispered, nudging their noses together. “People can see you.” She gestured to the passers-by—other dead that walked the City of Light.
No one was really looking but Lexa tilted her head down as pink bloomed across her cheekbones. Her lips pinched in a hidden smile. Clarke ducked her head and kissed her. Lexa tensed, but when Clarke didn’t pull away she sighed gently into the close-mouthed kiss.
It was nothing like their other kisses—the shy, tentative ones they’d exchanged in private and the rushed, frantic embraces from their last minutes in the City of Light, before they ran in opposite directions to save the same world.
This was the kiss of tired girls coming home. It was patient and assured; there would be more kisses. There would be all the time in the world to discover all the kinds of kisses.
Lexa said, “Come with me” and in a blink Clarke found herself clutching Lexa on a tram that hustled down a busy main street attached to cables and poles. Lexa held her waist freely, eyes only for her despite the car filled with passengers. It took a moment for Clarke to be accustomed to riding a moving vehicle; this was another of the things she remembered vaguely from a class on the Ark in a different lifetime.
Lexa snuffled in her hair and stroked up and down her back. Clarke felt eyes on them and looked up. Then she remembered they were dead and she didn’t have to be wary of grounders’ eyes lying in wait anymore.
Anyway this person looked familiar. She wore modern clothes and her skin was clear. Clarke tried to place her but was distracted by Lexa, snorting in her hair. Snorting?
Clarke looked up and followed Lexa’s gaze to the stranger who was watching them. Before she could ask what was going on, the tram stopped and Lexa whisked her away onto a street of tall residential buildings where children played on the pavement. They were grounder children and played violent wrestling games accompanied by yodeling war cries.
Something occurred to Clarke.
“Lexa,” she asked slowly. “Was that Anya?”
Lexa smiled to herself. “You’ve met,” she noted.
“We escaped Mount Weather together.”
“I remember,” Lexa assured her, taking out a key and opening the front door of the first building on the left.
“So why?”
Lexa smiled again. “Anya hasn’t changed much. She likes to watch out for me.”
Lexa lived in a small, generic suite of rooms not unlike the apartment on the Ark where Clarke had grown up. “The Commander of the Twelve Clans doesn’t have grander accommodations?” she asked, half-teasing.
Lexa fixed her with wide, worried eyes. “You don’t like it? I know it’s a bit small. I can watch the children play in the park from the window. But I can find somewhere else—”
“Lexa,” Clarke said, placing her hand on the grounder’s cheek and smiling. Lexa relaxed on contact and her body melted into Clarke’s arms.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she sighed.
“I’m sorry I took so long,” Clarke murmured against her collarbone.
“You did what you had to,” Lexa conceded.
Clarke pulled back to look in her eyes and Lexa broke completely from her, not understanding. Clarke shook her head and followed, cupping the grounder’s cheek. “Lexa,” she said, realization ballooning in her chest. “I don’t have to do that anymore.”
Clarke watched understanding dawn in the commander. Their eyes met. Hers soft and green. Lexa’s eyes. Not the commander anymore.
You and I will owe nothing more…
They came together on the downy mattress of Lexa’s bed. Clarke began at Lexa’s ankle and pulled the dress up her long, velvet calf, to the crook of her knee where she stopped and pressed her mouth to the wrinkled skin that formed when Lexa bent her leg. Lexa whimpered and Clarke’s insides clenched. Her sounds were like a kitten’s, soft and sweet. She lost all the ferocity of commander in her pleasure.
Clarke pushed the fabric of the dress up past her thighs and looked at Lexa’s sex, pink and bare and pulsing already, dabbed with wetness at the top.
Her mouth went dry. She looked up. Lexa’s head was back, her eyes closed. She had her bottom lip between her teeth. Clarke’s body shuddered when she realized she could live in this moment forever, truly. They were infinite.
“Sit up,” she rasped, and Lexa’s eyes flashed open and she looked down, aghast, not understanding why Clarke’s mouth wasn’t on her.
Clarke repeated the words, hardly understanding herself, weak with the need to touch Lexa everywhere at once. She wondered hazily if there was an afterlife that allowed for that.
Lexa sat up and Clarke fumbled for the zipper at the back of the dress. She pressed her hot, pulsing forehead to Lexa’s shoulder as she inched the zipper down and felt the sweet bare skin appear beneath it. When the zipper caught at the bottom, she slipped it over Lexa’s bottom and arms, which Lexa lifted for Clarke to finish the work.
Then she was there, golden and shaking beneath her, begging with her eyes for Clarke to begin again. Her skin was milky white except for the tips of her fingers and nipples, which were strained and pink, and the ring of her sex, which was a dusky rose. And her eyes, green and shining as they stared up at Clarke like deliverance from all the terrible things they both had done.
And Clarke began again. She started at her nipple this time, tonguing until the pink tip was taut and straining. She kissed in circles around the other nipple until she could see each tiny velvet hair stand on end and goose-bumps pebble the skin of Lexa’s breasts. All while Lexa lay back against the pillows and serenaded her with broken, begging whimpers and spread her legs so that Clarke could feel her open vulva against her belly, feel how wet she was from just Clarke’s touches. And Clarke arched her back and slid up just slightly, so that their sexes met, hers closed between her clenched thighs and Lexa’s open like a blooming flower straining for the sun.
“Clarke,” Lexa gasped, begging, head flung to one side and fingers in Clarke’s hair. Her eyes were hooded and lazy. Clarke couldn’t deny her any longer. She made a quick trail of kisses down the soft expanse of Lexa’s belly, lingering at her navel just long enough to feel each of Lexa’s quick, heaving shudders at the feel of Clarke’s lips on that sensitive spot near her hip.
“Ok,” Clarke soothed, holding Lexa’s hips down with her hands and licking the tender, salty skin where her hip and thigh met.
“Please,” Lexa husked. She couldn’t talk. She could barely breathe. She was flung out and writhing at Clarke’s mercy.
When Clarke licked the length of her sex, she sobbed. Clarke’s belly clenched at the sound, so keening and sweet with desire. She pressed the flat of her tongue to Lexa’s clit, not moving fast enough, or at all, for any kind of friction or relief, just reveling in the soft pebbled feel of Lexa’s hard clit against her mouth. She licked back down to the pink, inner hole where warm wet had coated her chin. She licked around the hole, all around the space of Lexa’s vulva, getting acquainted with the feel of it after so long—hot and velvet and wet, and clenching every time Clarke’s tongue caught her clit for a second before backing away.
“Wait,” Clarke gasped, breaking away and hastily undressing, needing the feel of Lexa’s bare skin on all parts of her.
Lexa’s disbelief came out in something between an exasperated laugh and a moan, but she wasn’t complaining when Clarke returned naked to her arms. This time she made hurried work of Lexa’s lips and breast and belly before pushing her tongue into Lexa’s sex and feeling her inner walls snap closed around her tongue. She pulled her tongue out and pushed in again. Lexa sobbed. Clarke repeated the motion twice more before bringing relief where Lexa needed it—and now Lexa’s clit was hard and ready for her when she grasped it between her lips.
Lexa’s hips fought to meet her mouth but Clarke had pinned her to the bed and Lexa was too breathless and needy to fight her. Clarke tugged at Lexa’s clit and licked it with the tip of her tongue—slowly, with just enough friction to keep her on edge and wanting more. She maneuvered her arm so that it pressed down on Lexa’s belly and brought her other hand down to Lexa’s opening so she could push a finger inside.
Lexa’s sounds became one long keening moan that spiked Clarke’s arousal past anything she’d ever felt. She trapped Lexa’s thigh between her legs and ground down on pure muscle, letting out a groan that sent vibrations through Lexa’s sex. She started moving, pitching her hips back and forth against Lexa’s thigh. She kept Lexa’s clit in her mouth and strained to multitask, keeping the finger in Lexa’s sex jerking up and down. “Clarke,” Lexa sobbed and Clarke started flicking her tongue on Lexa’s clit fast and hard as she pumped her finger and added another, barely maintaining a rhythm now on Lexa’s leg, just wanting to feel her orgasm.
And it was perfectly Lexa-like; violent and rolling, her hips jerking up to meet Clarke’s tongue, but also reverent and soft, a contradiction of sweat and cum and the burning feeling of adoration that sparked off their skin when they touched.
Lexa collapsed onto the pillows in a boneless heap but managed to yank on Clarke’s hair, encouraging her to keep moving. Clarke humped Lexa’s thigh with full concentration now, and Lexa pulled her up so their bodies were pressed entirely together and she could feel their breasts slide, nipples strained and sensitive. “Come on, Clarke,” Lexa breathed in her ear, a wispy, airy, exhausted sound that drove Clarke harder. Her ass pitched in the air as she rubbed back and forth on Lexa’s velvet skin, her muscle causing friction just beneath it on every part of Clarke’s pussy until she came, freezing as her inner walls clenched over nothing and her clit pushed down on Lexa’s hard thigh.
In the aftermath they lay in an entangled sweaty heap. Clarke inhaled deeply where she was buried in Lexa’s neck, smelling her sweat and her sex. Lexa found Clarke’s hand and brought it up to her mouth, taking Clarke’s fingers one at a time and licking them clean until Clarke found herself aching again. Finally when Lexa was satisfied she slid their fingers together and rested her head back on the pillow.
“Tell me about this place,” Clarke mumbled, wanting to hear her voice again.
Lexa smiled with her eyes closed. “There are many of my people here. And some of yours, I imagine. I haven’t met them all.” She nestled deeper into Clarke’s body. “I was waiting for you,” she admitted in a whisper.
Clarke smiled and traced her face, running her fingertip between her eyes and down her nose. She traced the line of her lips. Lips that turned up in a smile.
Then flipped down in a frown.
“I am just code though,” Lexa said morosely. “So are you.”
Clarke’s heart skipped a beat. She knew this version of Lexa, of course, the Lexa that believed love was weakness and that apathy and obligation were built into the role of Heda. Lexa who was afraid to feel because even the barest scrap of happiness was too good to be true. She bent her head so their eyes met. “How is that different from what we were before?”
Lexa lifted her hands to show Clarke. “We were flesh before. Flesh and blood.”
Clarke took Lexa’s chin in her hand. “What is this?” she said, and kissed her sharp and quick. “That’s not flesh?” she demanded.
Lexa looked at her sadly. “Clarke, you know it’s not.”
Clarke kissed her again, gripping her forearms and grounding her there. “That feels like flesh to me.”
Lexa shook her head. “It’s all code behind this. Numbers and wires. You had a friend that understood this sort of thing, I believe.”
“Raven,” Clarke realized. “No, Lexa. Listen. Raven would tell you that numbers and wires are as real as anything else.”
“But I didn’t want this. A false life. Not for you, Clarke," Lexa mourned.
Clarke kissed her fiercely. "Listen," she whispered. "Biology—the cells that made up those bodies. It was just a different kind of code.”
Lexa dipped her head, unconvinced. She touched the tip of her finger to Clarke's nipple and drew swirling circles around it. Clarke tried to meet her gaze but eventually Lexa turned away and lay her cheek on the pillow opposite Clarke. Clarke sighed and wrapped an arm around her waist, tracing Lexa’s back tattoos with her nose.
And then, finally, when Clarke was feeling drowsy and lazy, drunk off the scent of Lexa's skin; “You really believe that?” Lexa hedged.
Clarke smiled so Lexa could feel it against her shoulder. “It’s the same as believing in a god.” She squeezed Lexa’s hand. “Or immortality. And you were right about that.”
“Yes,” Lexa said reluctantly. “I suppose.”
“Hey.” Clarke leaned over Lexa until she turned to face her. Clarke kissed her long and slow, two whole worlds of love carved in the space between their lips. She pulled back and Lexa followed her. Clarke grinned a cheeky grin and Lexa propped herself up on her shoulder, gazing at her in exasperated adoration.
Clarke traced her nose with the tip of her finger. “Do we need sleep in the City of Light?”
Lexa considered. “I've never needed it. It may be possible, however. And I imagine it would be pleasurable to sleep with you.”
She blushed at that and ducked her head but Clarke didn’t miss the smile on her lips. Clarke tugged Lexa gently back down and nestled into her. Lexa nudged their noses together and breathed deeply, a restful sigh at last.
“Reshop, Heda.”
…To our people.