UnderStanding (Clexa)

Chapter Eleven

TonDC - My flame flickers

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"Clarke let's go. We'll come back with reinforcements." She hears their voices calling to her as they begin their walk back to the Ark.

"Clarke. Clarke, come on." She hears again, turning around to face them, seeing Monroe watching her. "It's over. I'm sorry." She too turns to walk away as Clarke stands there, unwilling to take a step away.

Turning back to face the closed door to the mountain she stares at it, eyes hardening and jaw set, forcing her mind to override what she's feeling in her heart. "It can't be over."

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"What is wrong with you?" Octavia raises her voice, stepping in front of Clarke and putting her hand on the gun she had raised at the entrance from the reaper tunnels.

"I am getting through that door!" She states heatedly, her eyes unfocused with too many warring emotions running rampant through her body. She felt like a live wire ready to snap, a volcano ready to erupt and she had no way of stopping it.

"And that's your plan? Bellamy's counting on you. Everyone is always counting on you!" Octavia's voice is firm and loud, eyes fierce.

"What do you want from me?" Clarke pleads.

"You trusted Lexa. You let a bomb drop on TonDC. You let all of those people-"

"I am doing the best I can!" Clarke cries out desperately, voice breaking like her soul. Shattering inside her, barely able to hold itself together to make it through this day.

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The emotion clawing its way out through Clarke's voice is heart stopping. Her eyes are filled with unshed tears, her left hand is clenched around an unknown object while her right is squeezing tightly to Lexa's as she faces more of her haunted memories.

"I told her it wasn't good enough then." Octavia whispers, eyes cast down to the floor, unwilling to look up at them. "I was so angry with her. I knew she was hurting but all I could do was focus my pain and anger on her. And she just took it."

"That's what true leaders do." Lincoln spoke for the first time in nearly an hour, his voice soft but full of emotion. "They suffer for their people." He looked then to his commander, respect in his eyes.

Lexa gave him a small nod in thanks, holding tightly to the pale hand still wrapped in her own. Clarke's grip was tight, painfully so but she craved it. She craved anything she could do to help her through this.

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She felt numb. No, that wasn't right. She felt dead inside; cold. She was holding onto that fiercely, because if she let anything else in, she would surely break before her people were saved.

Looking at the smug look of Dante Wallace made her skin crawl. She heard his words, but let them float around her, not penetrating her resolve to end this. She directed Monty to get them into the command centre, taking the former president with them as a hostage.

"Deliverance comes at a cost. I bare it, so they don't have to." He responds in question as to why he wasn't with his people on Level 5. Those words manage to penetrate into her mind just as Bellamy realizes it was Dante that made the deal with Lexa. It was his idea, not his son's.