ALLIANCE

Epilogue

"You're doing it all wrong", said Clarke while crossing the small rocking boat with ease and sitting by Raven's side. "You have to hold it by the edge and the middle, otherwise it will get tangled."

Raven shot Clarke a look of disbelief and continued to pick on her fishing net. "Geez, thank you Captain."

"You're welcome", returned Clarke, pretending she didn't catch the sarcasm on the woman's voice. "How come you graduated first on zero gravity mechanics but you can't catch a single fish?"

"They didn't teach much fishing on the Ark, in case you have forgotten."

Clarke just laughed softly and helped Raven to untangle her net, getting it done in a matter of seconds.

"See? It's not that hard."

"She has a lot of practice", said Octavia as she passed by the girls rowing her own boat. "She has to untangle the Commander's hair every single night."

Raven burst out laughing and Clarke just gave her a light slap, running to the edge of the boat in a playful attempt to catch Octavia.

"I'm so getting back at you for this, O!"

"First you'll have to get as good at rowing as you are at hairstyling", shouted Octavia, already far away from the place were the girls stood, rowing fast across the large river that surrounded Polis.

OOOOOO

Clarke walked around the city's narrow streets greeting everyone that she passed through. It had been a little over two months since she started living there officially. Her first proposition as a councilwoman was to open the city gates to the Sky People, allowing them to live inside Polis for as long as they wanted and inserting them in the Grounder's society. It was a very complicated matter that required long hours of discussion.

Since it was such an important decision to the city, Lexa decided to invite the leaders of the guilds to the matter. Aaron was the first to support the invitation, having nothing to hold against the Sky People, and some other leaders agreed with him. There were others who hesitated because they were afraid of the strangers, but with time and much talk with Clarke they ended up agreeing. The soldiers were the hardest ones to comply. It took almost a whole month to convince them, but they finally agreed after acknowledging how much the alliance with the Sky People's army would bring to theirs.

When the vote finally took place, it was unanimous in favor of the Sky People. That's right – even Indra agreed on their invitation to Polis. Clarke went personally to Camp Jaha to tell the news and Abby made clear that no one was obliged to go. Most of them went, anyway, including the doctor.

They had been living for a month with the Grounders, trying to learn their ways and find their places on the society. Some were naturally good at specific professions and were already trading goods in the market, but most of them were still trying to find what was their role in Polis. Or maybe even on Earth.

When Clarke reached the city's central square she saw a fight going on, surrounded by people cheering the contestants. Lexa was watching it a few feet away with Indra standing still by her side. She turned to the Commander and maid some comment that must've been about the weakness of one of the fighters, for Lexa let out a smirk.

Clarke made her way through the crowd and found Bellamy engaged in a very intense combat with Zachary, the soldier who was almost elected for council. They were fighting without any weapons, hitting each other with only hands and feet, and wearing no shirts. That's probably why the crowd was mainly composed of teenage girls and fellow soldiers.

The blonde looked back to Lexa and saw the woman saying something to Indra's year and giving her some kind of stone. When Indra started to get closer to the crowd, Lexa just laid on a wall casually, as if she was doing nothing at all. Clarke found this behavior a little strange and followed Indra with her eyes, noticing that the general placed the stone on one of the soldier's hands.

"The bet had been raised for Zachary", he shouted in trigedasleng.

Some other soldiers laughed and placed another bets on their colleague's hands, gathering small knives, stones, medicine bottles and other things that were worth something. Clarke closed the distance between her and Lexa, catching the Commander by surprise.

"Clarke", she greeted moving her eyes away from the fight, pretending that she wasn't interested at all. "I didn't see you were here."

"I know what you're doing. You're betting against my friend!"

Lexa tried her best to put on an innocent face, but she wasn't very good at masking her feelings in front of Clarke. Life had taught her that much.

"Well, when you put it that way it makes me look bad. I'm actually betting on my friend."

A shout came from the middle of the crowd, followed by a thud. Bellamy was on the floor, face shoved against the dust pressed down firmly by Zachary's foot.

"See? He's very good."

"Since when is Zachary your friend?"

Lexa blinked a few times, trying to come up with a good answer. She just couldn't lie to Clarke. "Look, I didn't mean Bellamy any harm, okay? The fight is a part of his training, he volunteered to do it."

"But did you have to bet against him?"

"Yes", she answered straightforwardly. "I don't like the way he looks at you."

Clarke burst out laughing, much like Raven did a few moments before on the fishing boat. The Commander just stood there trying to maintain her composure in front of the citizens passing by.

"You care about him", said Clarke in a mocking tone, clearly trying to impersonate Lexa. "You worry about him more."

Lexa was trying really hard to pretend she didn't find this funny, but she couldn't help at least smirking while her wife was having the laugh of a lifetime with this silly memory. It was delightful to watch Clarke like this, so carefree. So genuinely happy.

Clarke caught her breath and put her arms around her wife's waist, bringing her closer. She knew Lexa wasn't very found of those public displays of affection, but she just couldn't help herself sometimes. The brunette didn't comply this time, though. She just returned the embrace, enlacing Clarke in return, and they both stood there watching Bellamy get his ass kicked.

Maybe this peace wasn't going to last forever. Maybe new enemies would appear. No – of course new enemies would come by. That's how they lived, that's what Earth was like for them. But that didn't matter right now because Clarke and her friends had finally find a place where they could just be. In Polis they weren't desperate last members of a species fighting to stay alive, hunted by mysterious beings among the woods. They weren't leaders trying to keep their people together and making decisions that resulted in war, betrayal and death. They weren't soldiers making alliances so they could stand a chance at rescuing their prisoners.

They weren't just surviving. They were actually living.

And when Clarke felt Lexa's arms around her she looked around to see the people passing by, the soldiers fighting, the children running and the common people sweeping their porches with such sheer simplicity that it filled her heart with an inexplicable joy. In that moment she finally understood what felt like to be home.

THE END

OOOOOO

Author's Notes: Thank you for reading! This was my first complete story and also the first one I've ever written in English, so I would appreciate some reviews to let me know what you thought about it.

I hope you had as much fun reading as I had writing it. :)