Lost Love Found [ #Wattys2015 ] {Bellarke}

Ultimatum

Clarke's POV

Clarke was led by Lexa to one of the large, animal skinned tents near the center of camp. Grounders stopped and stared as they passed. Men gripped their weapons tighter. Women pulled their masks over painted faces. They made sneering remarks, occasionally spitting in Clarke's direction. She glared back at them defiantly, unafraid and unabashed. Taunt and scorn her all they damn well like, but they wouldn't break Clarke's resolve.

Lexa pulled open the tent flap for Clarke and waited for her to step inside, giving distinct orders to the Grounders outside the tent. Walking further into the room, Clarke noticed several command tables and barrels of weapons resting atop a fur covered floor. Maps hung on the walls along with other posters written in a language she couldn't understand. Lexa brushed past her then, striding ahead and sitting upon an antlered throne.

"Well, Clarke," she said after a moment of drawn out silence. "Are you going to tell me how you escaped your captors and managed to find Bellamy's tent?"

"They're gullible. It wasn't hard to make them talk." Clarke replied casually and began to trail her fingers along one of the command tables. She noticed familiar looking landmarks like Mount Weather, Camp Jaha and the weapon depot sketched haphazardly across the surface. There were unfamiliar landmarks as well, many of them lining the coast - even a large city complete with mock buildings.

Lexa bristled at the statement Clarke had made about her Grounders, her jaw working furiously. "There was really no need to tie them to poles, Clarke. I can assure you that Bellamy was attended -"

"He was bleeding out!" She snapped suddenly, slamming her hand down on the table. "If I hadn't found him he would've died either of blood loss or infection."

"Your concern for him runs to deep," Lexa said, continuing on as if Clarke's outburst had never occurred. "It's a dangerous game you're playing at, you and him."

"There is no game." Clarke growled.

"Don't be naïve. No one respects an ignorant girl." She replied, drawling out this last part, slowly, deliberately, as if taunting Clarke's self-control.

"Ignorant girl?" Clarke shouted.

Lexa let out a long, controlled breath and began to play with her ivory dagger, tossing it over in her hands. The medal blade glinted in the morning sunlight cascading down from holes in the roof of the tent. "Do you really not see it? Honestly, Clarke, it was obvious from the moment I met you two."

"You better stop answering questions with questions or I swear -"

"Swear what?" Lexa interjected. "You'll kill me? We all know that you would never do that, not to me."

That morning, for the very first time, Clarke's mouth snapped shut. She balled her fingers into fists, wishing that she had her gun, feeling naked without it. And with a leering expression her face, Lexa leaned back and crossed her legs. In her mind, she had won. She had won this little confrontation with Clarke. All she had to do was play on her feelings and, in doing so, Lexa had single handedly disarmed Clarke's inner fire.

"Don't give me that shit about love and weakness..." she muttered, looking down and away from Lexa. She didn't want to hear it again, not from her, not when it was Clarke's love that saved her people from Mount Weather.

"Maybe you don't need to hear it," Lexa started. "But perhaps Bellamy does."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Clarke demanded, her anger resurfacing at the mention of his name.

There was a long pause, an infinitely long pause. Once more, Clarke was glaring at Lexa, but, this time, Lexa was the one looking away. And, for a moment, there was a deep and reflective sadness in her eyes.

"Bellamy is in love with you."

Clarke's entire world stopped spinning. Her heart dropped into her stomach. Her ability to form coherent words vanished. The Earth came to an immediate and abrupt halt on its axis. The gentle and constant hum of the core ceased to rumble. Birds stopped singing, men and women stopped talking, the sounds of the forest dissipated along with Clarke's capability of intelligible language.

"What?" Clarke's voice was barely audible - nothing more than a breath of silk riding the wind.

"The way he speaks to you, the way he held you as you slept," Lexa began almost bitterly, her lip curling like a dog's. "The way he looks at you as if you hold the sun in your hands..."

"Stop!" Clarke yelled, throwing up a hand. She felt very dizzy all of the sudden.

Lexa tilted her head in mock confusion, her false sympathies etched across her shadowed face. Then, she rose from her throne, her long, red cape falling down and around her legs. She made her way towards Clarke, taking slow and deliberate steps.

"He doesn't love me. Not in that way." Clarke continued, muttering more to herself than to the Commander.

"Perhaps," agreed Lexa as she began to circle Clarke like a cat circles a mouse. "But if he does love you, it puts our whole plan in jeopardy. It puts you in jeopardy."

"Is this about Polis?" She snapped, watching Lexa through wary eyes. "I'm not going anywhere with you until you tell me why the hell I'm here."

The Commander stopped pacing and stood a hair's breath away from Clarke's face. For a moment Clarke froze like a rabbit before a poacher, uncertain of Lexa's proximity. She was staring at her full lips, her wheat colored hair, her flushed cheeks. Lexa reached out a hand, but Clarke slapped it away - breaking whatever hold the Grounder had on her.

Lexa snarled and backed away like a sullen wolf.

"At the moment you're a guest," she began in a low and threatening voice. "Do not test my hospitality - sky-person."

"Last I checked guests weren't purposefully wounded by their hosts." Clarke retorted, referring to Bellamy's injury.

Lexa's hand shot out and forcibly grabbed Clarke's chin, her nails digging into the soft flesh. She felt the blood rushing to where Lexa had broken the skin. The black war paint decorating her face did nothing to mask the hatred in her eyes. Lexa's armor, her hair, even her demeanor had come undone.

"You are alive by my will, you survive because I allow you to survive," Lexa hissed. "You and Bellamy will arrive at the capital masquerading as friends, as allies to the Forest Nation. You will forge an alliance between the Grounder nations and the other Skypeople civilizations."

"Why?"

"Why?" Lexa repeated, tightening her grip on Clarke's face, squeezing every ounce of rebellion from her skin. "Because Clarke, the history you were told is not the history of this earth."

There was a brief and weighted pause - thick and heavy with anticipation.

"War is coming. And we are not prepared."