Clexa Proposal
Prompt: Canon clexa proposal. [AN: I added my own spin: Clarke jumped in front of the bullet and was rushed back to Arkadia's medical bay. Lexa follows through the dead of night to ask the Chancellor the most important question the Heda has ever asked.]
Can be found below and also on Ao3 here.
Song: Cassandra Dies — DW.
The room was vibrating, it hummed with a little noise that was unfamiliar to the commander's ears, shivers ran through her spine and she wondered whether it was a skaikru trick or the ghosts of brethren lost here. The bright light hurt her eyes and so she winced and kept them closed, she ran her tongue over her bottom lip and licked the taste of iron and salt and stretched the gnawing muscles in her neck.
"That," Lexa wiped the blood from her lip, "Is punishable by death." she eyed Abby who shook and heaved in front of her like a wild animal, the responsible fist trembling with the rest of her.
"Let's not do anything rash." Kane stepped between them entirely too late, "Heda, we are grateful you came to consult with us first." he handed her a handkerchief to stem her split lip.
"Consult with us?" Abby's eyes narrowed and her voice was shrill. "How would you feel if it was your daughter being used as a bargaining chip? She is lying in a hospital bed lucky to be alive. If anything had happened..." Abby clutched her chest at the thought and it didn't need saying out loud.
"Clarke is—"
"Don't." Abby raised her finger at the young commander and she was powerless, victim to a mother;s wrath. "I bet you've never had to ask permission for anything in your whole life. The answer is no. I'm not selling my daughter to a warlord... even if it is the price of peace." she sneered and crossed her arms.
"I remind you that this is a skaikru tradition." Lexa stepped forward, "Once she is strong, I am free to formally ask Clarke with or without your permission." there was a little raise of her brow and it was intended as a challenge.
"I just got my daughter back." Abby's voice betrayed herself and she pointed her finger right at Lexa. "I was in space and—and she came to the ground and ever since then she was too busy saving people to even notice I'm around and I have just gotten her back from all of that." her chest heaved with the weight of it all and Abby couldn't contain it, palpable as it was, it choked the room and left it devoid of everything but her burden. "So no, Lexa. You don't get to ride in here on horseback with your army and make my daughter fall in love with the idea of you. The strong, beautiful warlord who will whisk her away from this life and keep her people safe. It's a lie and you know it."
"You are wrong, Chancellor Griffin." Lexa glared and chewed and huffed and suffered it all magnificently. "I will give my last breath to keep her people safe, because when we are wed, her people will become my people."
"So this is political? Just a formality to quell a potential uprising against us becoming the thirteenth clan?" Kane nodded and tried to make these things easier to swallow, though it was a losing battle.
Lexa sneered and nodded her head, like an actress, a thespian at the most crucial part of the play, she made pretense of her indifference to such false accusation and colluded in Kane's efforts. Clarke was the sea and the sun and the moon and the wind, and she… she was just basking in the glow of it all, and so she would eternally without need or want to explain her truest motives to anyone, not even Clarke.
"Clarke is uniquely positioned to be of high enough station to wed. She is a brave warrior, respected and knowledgeable on the customs and politics of both our people, she will be an excellent advisor to offer me counsel and there is much to gain from such a union… she would be protected for the rest of her life." Lexa forced the rehearsed speech she'd prepared the entire ride here out of her chest. "Clarke and I, we could make a mark on the world."
"Do you not see how that makes what you're asking even worse?" Abby clenched and balled her hands, her teeth grinding into a crescendo of frustration. "She took a bullet from one of your closest advisors and nearly got herself killed, and you come here to talk to us about politics! You should be begging our forgiveness, not asking for favours. You don't deserve her love, Commander."
"You think I don't know that!" Lexa shook though she did her best to stand taller, "If you think," Lexa chuffed on her own disbelief for a moment and held it right there, looking at the ceiling and off to the vents for a tiny bit of respite. "If you think she could ever be so ordinary, so human, so beneath her duty to love someone like me then you haven't the slightest idea of who she is!" she paused and felt the truth of it simmer her skin and set her insides alight. "I love her and that much is true, but loving Wanheda, it's like admiring a sunset or loving the stars themselves, you don't expect nor do you ask them to love you back." her teeth gnashed and she did well to stop her eyes betraying the whimpering wild thing inside of her chest that shook at the mere thought of loving Clarke in the truest, purest form of the word.
"I don't have much to give... but I can give her my title, I can protect her for the rest of her life and take care of her people and I want nothing in return. I want to marry her so that she may experience all the joy the world can give her, not so I can be the joy at the centre of her world."
"It's you who needs protecting… not me." a voice wheezed.
Clarke was there and ethereal and furiously alive and she did it all with a perfected poise that left Lexa breathless. Though she limped and ached, the sky clung to her with all its might, her skin was scrubbed clean and her hair was combed out and skaikru wires burrowed beneath the skin of her arm pumping drugs to where she needed them the most.
"Clarke, get back in bed!" Abby span on her feet and shooed her back like a mother over its duckling.
"Just—relax, Mom." Clarke shrugged her off and held her ground.
"Your mother is right, you should rest." Lexa deflated, pawing the back of her neck and barely looking in her direction. "I demand it."
"Since when did you argue with the sunset?"
"Clarke..." Lexa pouted and shot her a warning glance.
"Or the stars themselves?" Clarke stifled a grin.
" Shof op ." she whispered, tame and quiet.
"It's been a stressful day for everyone. Commander, I will have a room prepared for you. Please stay as our guest and we can all talk tomorrow when tensions aren't running as… high." Kane insisted.
"I will stand guard at Clarke's door." Lexa chuffed before faltering under Abby's acute stare. "...If I may?" she quickly corrected herself.
"You may." Abby cautiously nodded before taking Kane's arm to give them some privacy. "She has to rest." she leaned in close to Lexa and though there was a grit and a reluctance to her, this was a start, a common ground they both shared.
"You rode all the way here? It must have taken you at least two days." Clarke wheezed and clung to the pretense that she was above the gnaw of the pain that ate at the gunshot wound in her gut. Lexa knew better. She took precisely three steps to close the distance between them and with that she wrapped her arm around her waist and bore her weight and took her back to bed.
"I rode all the way here." Lexa swallowed and somehow kept the fibres of herself that threatened to fray woven together like a tapestry that existed solely to tell their story. "I… you were worse for wear, I had to know you were okay, Wanheda."
"I'm okay, I'm right here." Clarke stopped in the corridor just before her door and grabbed Lexa's sinewed forearm. Her thumb ran in little concerned circles and it unravelled the tapestry.
"I was terrified." Lexa wept and Clarke could do nothing but take her in her arms. "I—I'm sorry, Clarke." she bit it back and tried to pull away.
"Don't you dare." Clarke whispered quietly, refusing to loosen her grip. "You're allowed to be weak in front of me, you don't have to be the commander when it's just us."
"I held you in my arms and I didn't think you were going to—" she took a deep breath and bit her lip. "I care for you so deeply."
"Don't ask me to marry you." Clarke chewed and lied, gently letting go of Lexa's arm. "I love you, Lexa. I love you and if anything ever happened to you, it would kill me... I can't lose another, I'm sorry." she whispered it like a secret.
"Have you ever felt so certain about something you would rest your life on it?" Lexa swallowed and stared with those giant green eyes that could cast back the river swell. "I held you in my arms, all bloodied, and I knew I would have traded my life for yours in an instant." she shook her head and bit her lip, "I'm not asking you to marry me for any convoluted political reason more than simply because I am girl who loves a girl and life is about more than just surviving."
"Don't ask me." Clarke stood tall and lifted her chin, trembling.
"I'm asking." Lexa stepped closer and took her hand. "Be mine, Clarke. Be mine not just to bring peace to your people or assure their place, do it because love is enough and your life is about more than just surviving too."
Clarke fell into her, knees weak and mouth hungry, their lips clashed and it was gentle and necessary. Her hands found the commander's cheeks and held them just so, with long soft ringlets caught in her fingers. "I don't just go around taking bullets for anyone." she gently scolded her and rolled her eyes.
"Don't ever do that again." Lexa shook and she was furious and in love, holding Clarke so gently like she was a beloved ragdoll that had been sewn back together.
"I'll marry you..." she wrapped herself tighter around the commander and whispered in her ear, "but you don't get to tell me not to go around jumping in front of bullets for the woman I love."
"I wouldn't dream of it." Lexa grinned bashfully into her shoulder and dipped her nose against the paper tunic, somehow it smelt of Clarke, of wild berries and summer and it was close enough to taste. Clarke didn't see, but she stood there and grinned right into her, maybe for little more reason than because she loved her impossible sky girl and whilst the world relied on things of stronger resolve, in that moment, fleeting as it may be, love was enough and it reigned supreme.
