AN: Sometimes the hardest decisions are the ones you know you have to make.

(I can't help think that this was the only way; something to chew on before Wednesday and the crushing of my plotline dreams)

She's running, running before she can really process it, and all she can think is I killed a man I killed a man and it hardly makes a difference that he was a grounder, that he was talking about killing her family (the Ark was home, the Ark was home, but now there is a group of miscreants who are hers) or that he had scars for the people he had killed - he was a person and she'd killed him, calculating, cold even; gods, Bellamy would be proud, she'd killed a man -

And then she's in the air, faster than the wind can escape her lungs, and she's upside down, blood pounding into her head to the beat of dead dead dead, and she killed a man, and

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She dreams of winter, of a white so strong that it stretches across the world, a blanket of cold and crystalline. She's dressed in furs and hard armour, her hair is tied back in a high ponytail, and her palm are encased in leather, fingertips free, free to move and dig and spread flat into the icy world that is in front of her. Each tree is dipped in snow, every inch of the world is covered and quiet, it is so silent that it's ominous, but it is also peaceful, and she has always admired the Earth's stoicism to the terror rained upon it.

She's dressed in white furs, and all she can think about is the books never tell you about the beauty, they only tell you about the cold, and then someone is calling her name.

(somewhere deep down she knows they need her, that this was a healing mission, not exploration, but it is hard to tear her eyes away)

But then a hand is clasped on her shoulder, turning her, facing her towards a man with ink across his skin and urgency in his gaze, and she runs with him.

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She's surprised that she wakes, not because the dream was so tempting (it was) but because she hadn't expected to live through the night, especially when her eyes peel open only to be greeted by none other than Anya herself. True to her nature, Clarke only blinks, slowly, trying to process what had happened, what was happening, and if there was still time to fix it.

The Grounder Queen is pissed, is standing next to a dead guards body (dead, dead, dead), but she isn't killing Clarke.

(and that is how she knows what she must do)

Sitting up is painful, but is also somehow easier with no one there but an angry grounder to see her struggle. She groans and leans heavily back on her arms, but she is upright and the world is clear and her path is as well.

"Have you done it?" She asks, looking around for someone, Finn maybe, or even another grounder, but there is no one. They're back in the same little bunker as before, except Clarke is on the patient table, and two are dead. "Have you killed everyone?"

Have you destroyed my home?

"No." Anya keeps her gaze on her, a steady look which holds no secrets.

Clarke gulps, brings a hand to her head where there is still pounding. "Is my friend dead?"

Finn, Finn pulling her in the water, Finn with a two headed deer, just for her, Finn dying on the table -

"No." Anya repeats, and this time her scowl is the message, the slight downturn of lips that says Clarke has a chance. Clarke can choose to save everyone, if only because Finn is alive and Anya is frowning and Clarke is a medic.

They are on the same page, because all Clarke says is, "We can stop this before it is a war."

Anya agrees. "What we needed was a healer," and she looks back down, to the dead "but I see you are also a warrior."

Idly Clarke wonders if killing one of them will earn her a scar, if by joining their brotherhood she'll have to follow their customs. "I'm not a warrior, I'm a fighter."

"Is there a difference?"

"To me there is."

Perhaps there is hope for Anya nods as if this makes sense. "They will all live, as long as they do not fight back."

"They won't."

"And there can be no more bombs."

There's something to this, a clause or a treaty, because in ninety-seven years was it foolish to think that no one had restored to gunfire again, but Clarke nods anyway.

Anya continues to stare at her, perhaps reading the uncertainty. "Can you really speak for them?"

And she won't lie, so she admits, "No...but I can speak to the one that can."

(although to even think that Bellamy would agree to no bombs is a bit of a stretch, but he'll have, he'll have to, because the burden will be so heavy with her gone and the Ark isn't coming down and he'll have to understand)

"You will come with us, and we will leave them alone."

It's all Clarke could ask for, because she somehow knows that this was never a war they could finish, that there were always going to be too many of them to fight back against...and that she could never clearly divide between us and them, only dead and alive. And Anya is violent and mean but somehow seems fair as well, as if those terms were never exclusive, and maybe it won't be so awful.

Clarke takes in a deep breath, and holds it, holds onto life with a steady count of the pauses in between heartbeats. This is life, and this is control, she is in control of her decisions.

And she decides.

"Take me back to my people." She stares at Anya in the same manner she is looked at, not glancing at the dead but looking cold and hard and like she could be a leader. "And I will leave with yours."

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It's difficult, convincing several less than a hundred that she chose this, she wants this (because she doesn't, she wants home, she wants her mom, but life doesn't make allowances for desperation), but it isn't too hard to convince Bellamy that it is their only option.

(surprise)

"I don't like it."

She's scrambling around the med-bay, the place she had called hers, trying to leave some sort of note or message or instruction for them to follow, so that when they get sick they don't die, if they get cold they don't die, if they fall they don't die, but there's no paper and what she really needs is to have been training someone this whole while.

(she thinks that Octavia would have liked to learn, because Octavia is demanding and can be heard, but is also benevolent and kind, and they need some of that, someone who doesn't hate on sight)

"Clarke." His voice is firm, and besides there's no paper, so she turns around. His eyes are looking straight into hers, and it has always been this way, the both of them too headstrong to do anything less than know each other's soul. "I don't like it."

"You don't have to like it Bellamy, you just have to agree."

He crosses his arms. "What if I don't? You're already back in camp, they can't force you out."

"You know that isn't an option."

"It could be."

And she thinks that maybe she misjudged him, maybe he would go up in arms for her (for the doctor), but she shakes her head. "They'll kill all of you."

Because it is Bellamy, the rebel prince turned leader turned king, he understands. "I still don't like it."

She sighs. "Yeah, me neither."

They stare at each other for a long while, and she knows that this if her send off. She can't see Finn (he's either passed out or hunting her down already, something, but he isn't here and she doesn't have the heart to say goodbye) and Jasper is tending to Monty (recently returned, after being kidnapped and beaten, but only slightly), and Clarke doesn't really need to see anyone else.

She hadn't been here long enough to need to see anyone else.

"Tell Octavia," and she gulps, blinks quickly "tell her that the book in my tent, the one with my drawings, it has some medical stuff in the back. Mixes and procedures and things. I wrote some of them down because I knew we'd eventually have to teach them, and she's really good with this stuff -"

Clarke."

"-and tell Finn..." she scrambles for the words, but there aren't any that would work, so she settles on, "tell him that this is the only way, and that he can't chase after me. I don't want him to. And make sure that when you rebuild the smokehouse that you put it away from camp this time, just in case, although maybe put one of your guards in charge because they follow orders better-"

"Clarke."

She blinks and looks at him, because this is important. "What?"

He's looking at her, she's still running in circles and the look in his eyes isn't a plea or a disagreement, just a statement; they're leaders, both of them had sacrificed and struggled to keep these teenagers alive and happy and they're comrades at the very least. He understands because he would do that same, and he doesn't like it but there are grounders in the camp with her, grounders who will escort her out and this might be the last time she'll ever see any of them again.

He understands, and she's close enough that all he has to do is reach out and he's laying a hand on her shoulder, rough, tight, and, "We can't do this without you."

It is still not an argument. She smiles. "Thanks Bellamy."

And she knows her time is up, this wasn't really a goodbye mission so much as a contractual one, and she nods out to the direction of the wall entrance. "They say that as long as you stop fighting, they won't retaliate for anything that's happened so far. You can all continue to live here just don't go past the perimeter - that's the river that we crossed our first night here, so Jasper can tell you where it is."

"I know where it is."

"And Bellamy, the bomb thing...respect that."

When he had first heard her terms (their terms?) he'd protested, he had pulled her away and threatened to shoot them and for a brief second Clarke had believed that there was another way out. But this wasn't a threat which could be vanquished with a few dead grounders, it was one which would end in bloodshed on all sides, but probably mostly just theirs.

And Bellamy had relented. "I know."

"They're wary of them I think, but that makes sense, and...we can do better than our ancestors."

"Clarke, I told you I agreed." He looks at her, long and hard, like the day they had met. "We keep the guns."

She nods. "They said nothing about those." And she hadn't wanted to ask.

"Keep inside the line, don't attack first, don't use bombs," he glances at her, frowning, "and you go with them."

She reaches her hand up to lay over top of the one he has on her shoulder, because really, this is the last time, and nods. "They need a healer. I'm a...I'm an asset."

He surprises her by reaching forward and pulling her into him, a jostling embrace. And she can't see his face, hers tucked into the junction between his neck and shoulder, but she thinks that he's still frowning. "You're a friend." His grip tightens. "Life here won't be the same without you."

He's going to be the only one able to say it, because Jasper is with Monty and Finn is somewhere Not Here, and Clarke thinks that this is all she needed out of a goodbye anyway, the knowledge that this is the right decision. So she raises her arms and hugs him back, taking in his acceptance.

"Don't let them die."

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