Another World - Clexa/Supercorp

"Clarke?"

A/N - It's been a while! A month and I'm sorry. I'm back with a short chapter. It's emotional and I am going to put a TRIGGER WARNING! for suicidal thoughts up here for this chapter for those that may want to skip this chapter. Hopefully, I won't be gone for as long again, but I can't promise anything, unfortunately. I hope you are enjoying this story and keep with it and my erratic updates.

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Clarke sat in their tent in TonDC, sketchbook open on her knees as she sat against the bed frame from the floor. Her hand hadn't moved, the page blank as it had been for over an hour, the remnants of a torn page peaked from the binding. The rustling of the tent flap told her someone had entered, but she didn't move, her eyes locked on the crumpled page she had thrown to the side.

"Clarke?" Lexa stood at the partition of their bedroom, concern dimming the green in her eyes as she looked down at the blonde. Her eyes followed Clarke's at the lack of an answer, moving slowly, she edged to the balled-up parchment. "What's wrong?"

It was a loaded question. Many things were wrong; burning three hundred warriors, the genocide at Mount Weather, everything Pike had done, her Father being floated. Nothing had been right in a long time. Except Lexa.

Straightening, Lexa pulled at the edges of the parchment, the charcoal image stark against the page. Her friends lying dead beyond the walls of Arkadia, forgotten and left for the forest to do with as it deemed fit. The latest of events to lay heavy on Clarke's shoulders.

Silently, Lexa sat beside Clarke, the image folded in her hands. "I'm sorry."

"They didn't deserve what happened to them." A cracked whisper, Lexa's heart ached at the pain Clarke still tried to hide. "They did nothing but think our people were human."

Ignoring Clarke's use of 'our people', Lexa remained silent, waiting for Clarke to continue. "I didn't mean to draw it. I wanted to draw something happy, something I could give you... and I drew that."

Clarke closed her sketchbook and dropped it on her other side. "Some Commander of Death, I can't even keep my friends safe from it."

Lexa turned to look at her fully, her profile stunning as always, but dimmed by the shine of tears on her cheeks. "That is a title, you control death no more than I choose for my blood to bleed black."

"You are Commander, can you say something like that?" Clarke asks, picking at non-existent lint on her pants.

Settling her head back against the furs of their bed, Lexa sighed. "Being Commander has taken a lot from me. My fellow Niteblidas I grew up with, my family, Costia, my friendship with Anya was never the same since I Ascended. We are all allowed to feel how we want, thinking of a life where I wouldn't have been expected to close myself off as I did, it used to be an escape."

Clarke turned to look at her. "Used to be?"

A small smile curled at her lips. "Had I not been Commander, I would never have met you."

Clarke smiled, but didn't speak for a minute. "I used to think whether being here was the best thing for everyone." She wrapped her hands around her legs and drew her knees to her chest.

Lexa gently lay her hand over Clarke's on her leg. "It is the best thing for me."

Leaning her head against Lexa's shoulder, she whispered. "When I was away, I wondered if the world would be better if I was killed in the night or used my gun." She felt Lexa tense under her temple. "I didn't deserve that peace, not after what I'd done. I deserved to see their faces every time I closed my eyes, see what I'd become because I wanted to save my people."

A weight settled on her as Lexa leant her head against hers, but she continued. "The first time I held the gun to my head, the thought of pressing it against yours instead stopped me. That first month, I wanted to kill you for what you made me do. I refused to admit you made me do nothing, my actions were my own and their deaths were mine."

Lexa didn't dare breathe too deeply. "Now, I can't thank whoever is listening that I didn't clean my gun. It jammed. Some Commander of Death, I couldn't even give it to myself properly."

Tears were running down both their cheeks in earnest now. Lexa had no idea how close she had come to missing out on this, how close Clarke had come in her months away to no longer existing. "Death would not have kept me from finding you, if you were not by my side, I would have followed you to be by yours."

Clarke stilled. "You love your people too much."

"Perhaps, and knowing you were out there, somewhere was okay. Your death, I do not think I would have it in me to want to live through the next battle or challenge I would have faced. I love you; I think I did the moment you stepped into my tent. You told me once you needed my spirit to stay where it was. I need you to know, your spirit needs to do the same. I will not survive without you and peace will not survive without us."

Despite the conversation, Clarke smiled. "Deal. Our spirits stay exactly where they are, on one condition."

Lexa lifted her head to look down at Clarke, waiting to hear what she had to do to keep Clarke at her side. Blue eyes met hers as she lifted to look up at her. "They stay here together."

They stayed like that for a while longer, leaning against each other on the floor by their bed until the sounds of TonDC around them fell few and far between. Only then did Lexa guide Clarke into their bed, hugging her close for what remained of the night as the blonde's even breathing calmed the anxiety that kept her awake.

Tomorrow, the guilty died and each time her eyes slipped shut, she was plagued with thoughts of Clarke not being with her when she woke. Her dreams had been cruel, a life with Clarke was one she refused to wake from. A life she could have had, had Clarke not perished in her months alone. If it was a dream, she was going to stay in it forever, she wasn't going to break another promise to the blonde.