Epilogue: We Are What We Are

They sat quietly in the gathering dusk, their shoulders brushing against each other. They passed the water skin back and forth, enjoying the cool breeze playing across their shoulders. They had done it, side by side they had dug graves for each of the thirty-six innocents. They had laid them to rest, there was nothing more to do.

FLASHBACK

"What now?" asked Lexa as she straightened from patting down the last shovelful of earth on the last grave. The blonde let her shovel drop and gazed at the thirty-six mounds of fresh, broken earth. Some were so small. She shook her head and went back to her rucksack. She dug through it until she found what she was looking for. It was the book that she had stopped and taken at the last moment from the supply closet on the Ark.

She looked at cracked maroon leather and the faded gold lettering on the cover. The pages were yellow, thin to begin with but now brittle with age.

She walked over to stand next to Lexa. "It's a Bible. Before the war, many people believed in one God, and they called him Jesus. This is his Holy Book. I read that they used to bury their dead and place, beautiful granite markers on top of the burials. They would read from this book, something called a Psalm.

She shuffled the Bible lightly in her hands and glanced at the brunette. "I guess it was their last goodbye."

Lexa nodded. She had heard of the Bible in Polis, as a matter of fact she had read one, and while she hadn't understood all of the Psalms, she had read them, and she knew which one Clarke meant. She reached out and carefully took the Bible from the blonde. She gently flicked through the pages until she found out it. She handed the Bible back.

"Here, Klark."

She took the Bible, hands shaking slightly, worried that maybe this wasn't right. She didn't know what the Mountain Men's traditions were, and the Traveler's Prayer wasn't appropriate. She glanced at the page, barely making out the words. She took a deep breath.

"The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures…."

Her voice swept gently over the clearing and Ryder smiled. It was good. It was good to say ancient words of comfort from before the world rent itself in two. The dead would hear, and they would understand.

END FLASHBACK

She wasn't ready to go, wasn't ready to leave the blonde. There was still so much between them, unspoken, and untried.

"What now?" Lexa whispered.

"I'm leaving for the Wastelands."

Her breath caught, and she choked back the desperate words that threatened to pour from her mouth. She was Heda, and Heda didn't beg. But maybe Lexa did.

"Klark…"

"No, Lexa. I can't stay here. I can't go back to Camp Jaha. I can't face them, and I can't stay in the woods, not with the Trikru."

"I get it, you know." The blonde shifted and leaned slightly harder into Lexa's shoulder. "I get it. I don't understand how you could leave me, but I get why you left me. I wish I didn't, but I get what you did, and why you did it." She laughed bitterly, "I did the same thing. I killed 300, thirty-six of whom were innocents so I could save 47. Maybe my mom was right, maybe there are no good guys. Maybe it's just humans in a harsh world, all of us trying to survive by whatever means possible."

The blonde shuffled her feet refusing to look at the girl next to her, for that was what she was, a girl. She was just Lexa here, not the Commander, not the Betrayer; just the girl with whom she had thought she could build a new and better future for both their people.

Lexa sat their quietly barely breathing, the tears gathering in her eyes. She was so tired of sacrificing, of leaving, of losing. Why couldn't she have what she wanted? Just once! After Costia, she never believed she could love again, had never wanted to, but then Clarke came crashing into her world; defying and challenging her at every moment. She came streaking down from the sky, a burning star only to rise from the ashes a burning Phoenix. Her people called her Skai Heda for good reason.

"Klark, your people…they need you. I know you don't want to return, but you must. You came to me wanting to learn how to survive down here, you asked me to teach you how to hunt, to plant crops, so your people would have a future, a life after the war. Well the war is over, and it is time to live. WE deserve THAT!" She pleaded with the blonde, turning to face the impassive features. She could just make out the blonde's profile in the twilight.

"I need you," she whispered brokenly as she leaned in and pressed her wet lips against the soft cheek.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that I had to leave you on that Mountain, that I had to abandon you, but I did." She felt the tears drip down her face, her lips just barely pressing against the Skai Heda's cheek near her ear.

"I won't apologize for saving my people, but I'm sorry you had to bring the mountain to its knees by yourself. I'm sorry for all of the dead." She leaned her forehead against the blonde's cheek feeling the last vestiges of hope wither and die as the blonde remained silent.

She started to pull away, resigned to the fact that she had lost again, and it was her own fault. She felt the head turn and a startled whisper flushed past her lips as she felt the slightly chapped lips press softly into hers. She felt the tender sigh against her mouth as the blonde pushed into her body, and Lexa groaned at the taste of the blonde's mouth as her lips opened against her own. She lightly swiped Clarke's bottom lip with her tongue and then pulled it gently between her lips, sucking lightly. She smiled into the kiss when she felt the shaking arms reach up and clasp around her neck and the body move fully into her own.

Clarke wrapped her arms tightly around Lexa's neck and then shoulders, flushing her body tightly against her own. Her eyes fluttered closed, and she felt the hollow ache in her chest slowly lessen, and her mind quieted at last, and the screams died down, the last flickering ghosts swept from behind her eyelids.

She pulled back slightly and looking into ageless, wet green eyes that had seen lifetimes of loves and losses. This was her lifetime, their lifetime.

"I don't think I can ever forgive you. B-but, Leska, I can live with it. I can live with what we've done." She tightened her hold around the brunette.

"We are what we are, and it's enough."

THE END. FOR REAL.