Work Text:
“It’s over,” Murphy said. “We’re trapped here.”
She’s brain dead.
They sat, shocked, watching Ontari bleed out. All of it, everything they had sacrificed to get here. And now Ontari was dead, beyond Clarke’s help, unable to find the kill code and stop A.L.I.E.
Clarke, her hand shaking, closed Ontari’s staring eyes.
“Yu gonplei ste odon,” she said.
A moment of silence passed where they all sat, numb and weary.
“So… what’s the plan now that Queen Bitch is dead?” Murphy asked.
“Murphy!” Bellamy hissed.
“What? She’s dead, it’s a fact,” Murphy said. “Besides, I knew her better than any of you. She would have murdered you all and bathed in your blood. Rest in Peace, Ontari, you crazy, murdering, smokin’ hot bitch-queen. Now what?”
Clarke felt a laugh curdle and die in her chest. Once, she would have been glad. Ontari of Azgeda: their greatest enemy. Except she wasn’t, not anymore. She had been their last hope, the last Nightblood. Now they had no way to stop A.L.I.E., no one to take the Flame.
A scuffle at the elevator shaft made Clarke jump, but it was only the rest of their doomed rebellion. Pike dragged himself up first, one arm clamped to his side, his face strained and sweating. He grunted at the scene in the throne room and turned to pull Bryan up next. Bryan looked worse than Pike and was equally supported by Miller, who was right behind him. The two collapsed next to the shaft, Bryan clutching weakly at his midsection, red seeping between his shaking fingers. Octavia came up last, a haunted look in her eyes. And that was it, no Indra.
“Oh good, it’s the B Team,” Murphy said. “You’re just in time: we’re all gonna die.”
“What happened?” Octavia asked, panting from the exertion of the climb. “Where’s…?”
“Ontari’s dead,” Bellamy said, flatly. “She can’t take the Flame.”
“There’s no one else who can be Commander?” Pike asked.
He had limped over to them, stepping over the prone form of Jaha.
Except they didn’t need a new Heda. The thought curled through Clarke’s mind, deadly, inevitable. They didn’t need someone to rule the clans: only the kill code. And how long could that take to find, if they were really looking for it? The Flame needed a host, but even Emerson had lasted for almost a minute. Would that be enough time to find the kill code?
Clarke had spent so long looking for another Nightblood, another host. Someone who could survive the Flame. But they were out of time and out of options.
“There’s only one thing to do.”
Clarke looked around the room: Bellamy beside her, Octavia and Pike standing over them. Bryan, grimmly pressing a shaking hand to the wound in his stomach and standing with Miller’s help. Murphy, kneeling uncaring in the growing puddle of Ontari’s blood, staining his knees black. All desperate, all looking to her to save them. To fix this.
Clarke looked down at her hands, finding the Flame cupped in her palms. She couldn’t remember picking it up - it was just there. It had been there for so long, calling to her. Lexa. It was all so clear to her now, what she had to do to save her friends, her mother. To save the world from A.L.I.E.
“So, what is it, Clarke? Got any other Nightbloods up your sleeves?” Murphy asked.
“No,” she said, hardening her voice with resolve. “I have to take it. I have to take the Flame myself.”
“What? No!” Bellamy rocked back on his heels, horror in his eyes.
“And the princess offers to sacrifice herself. Of course,” Murphy put in snidely, tossing down the towel soaked in Ontari’s blood and wiping his hands on his shirt. “Why am I not surprised?”
Octavia punched him in the shoulder.
“You can’t take the Flame, Clarke. You’re not a Natblida: it will kill you,” Octavia said. “What good does that do?”
“I can learn the kill code,” she said, looking around and settling her gaze on Pike, the only calm one.
“Will you be able to find the kill code before it kills you?” he asked.
“What? Pike, no,” Bellamy protested. “She’s not doing this.”
“I am,” Clarke said firmly, holding up the Flame. “This is Lexa. She’s in here. She’ll help me find the kill code: and that’s all I need. Just a few seconds. Then you’ll use the pass phrase and get me out.”
“You can’t be serious, Clarke,” Octavia said, huffing. “There’s not enough time. That thing killed Emerson in less than a minute. It liquefied his brain. Even if we do pull it back out, how much damage will it have already done?”
“Yeah, will you even be able to give us the code, or will you already be a vegetable?” Murphy asked.
Octavia punched him again, hard enough this time that he fell backwards, yelping in protest.
“What matters is getting Clarke out,” Octavia growled.
“What matters is going down fighting,” Miller amended.
“What matters is the kill code,” Pike said.
Bellamy’s head whipped up. He looked ready to murder Pike.
“It’s a hard truth,” Pike continued, flexing his grip on his gun. “But this is war. And our enemy will stop at nothing to win. To beat her, we have to be willing to do the same.”
Everyone was silent. That had essentially been Pike’s argument all along, but it had never sounded so brutal before.
“Will you be able to do it? Can you get the code?” Miller asked.
Clarke’s gaze swung back to the elevator shaft. Miller had gotten some makeshift bandages onto Bryan’s gunshot wound, but he still looked pained and fading fast. They were barely standing, Bryan half-leaning on Miller, half sagging back against the wall to remain upright. Miller’s eyes looked haunted, but he held his gun with a tight-knuckled grip. Clarke had never seen him this scared before.
“If we’re going to die,” Bryan said, grimacing and leaning heavily on Miller. “Let’s die trying to take A.L.I.E. down with us.”
“Don’t talk like that!” Miller exclaimed.
“What? You know it’s true,” Bryan said. “We’re fucked. But if Clarke can do this, maybe it was worth it.”
Clarke looked at the Flame in her hands. If she was right, then there was just the slimmest of chances that she could escape Emerson’s fate. If she was wrong, she’d be sacrificing not just her body, but her mind. But it didn’t matter. It was the only way.
“Yes, I can do it,” Clarke said, closing her fingers around the Flame.
“No,” Bellamy’s protest was a whisper, drawing her eyes back to him.
His face, usually so strong, so stoic, was screwed up in agony. His eyes wet with unshed tears.
“Don’t do this, Clarke. Don’t leave me again.”
She looked away from Bellamy, knowing that her resolve would break if she didn’t.
“I have to,” Clarke said. “It has to be me.”
Pike nodded, grim.
“Then we’ll give you the time to do it. Miller, Bryan watch the shaft. Murphy, Octavia: we’ll guard the other entrances.”
Murphy snorted and pushed himself up, rotating his punched shoulder and wincing.
“Good luck,” he said, headed to a side door under the balcony. “Try not to die, princess.”
Octavia shared a long look with Clarke. She reached out and put a hand over Clarke’s, squeezing hard.
“Mebi oso na hit choda op nodotaim,” Octavia said.
There was so much left to say, and only one way to say it.
“May we meet again,” Clarke echoed.
And then Octavia picked up her sword and joined Murphy at the chamber’s side door, her back a hard, straight line.
“Bellamy-” Pike continued.
“I’m not leaving her,” Bellamy said roughly.
A shock of warmth went through Clark, fierce and tender all at once.
“Good,” said Pike. “Give her the time she needs and then get her out.”
Pike looked back at Clarke.
“I hope this works.”
“It has to,” Clarke said, but Pike was already gone.
Clarke uncurled her fingers, looking again at the Flame. Her heart felt like it was pierced through, every beat a painful stab in her chest. This was it. This was their last hope. Her last chance to save them all.
And, she thought, she would see Lexa again. One more chance to say goodbye. But the thought was only a whisper. She wouldn’t have the time, couldn’t spare a moment on goodbyes when there was so much at stake. When every second with the Flame in her body brought her that much closer to death. Once she took the Flame she would have to focus: only the kill code mattered.
“Clarke,” Bellamy said, putting a hand on her leg.
Any second A.L.I.E.’s followers would be here. She had to take the Flame now: they’d already wasted so much time arguing over it. No time for goodbyes. Clarke raised her hand, bringing the Flame to her lips.
“Clarke, wait,” Bellamy took her wrist - firmly, gently - and pulled her hand back.
“Bellamy, what are you doing?” Clarke protested, finally turning to look at him. “We agreed: I have to do this. And I have to do it now.”
“I know,” he said.
His eyes were no less anguished than before, but the rest of him was still. Resolved. Somehow he’d gotten closer to her than she’d realized, until they were practically face to face, just inches apart. Bellamy reached up with his free hand and cupped her jaw, running his thumb over her cheek and catching the tears she hadn’t realized she was crying.
“Then let me go,” Clarke whispered.
“Never,” Bellamy whispered back.
And then he closed that last distance between them, kissing her. Bittersweet and full of all the things left unsaid between them. She tasted salt on Bellamy’s lips: her tears or his she didn’t know. With the hand on her jaw he pulled her closer, deepening the kiss, rough and desperate and tender all at once. She was drowning in Bellamy, awash with a flood of longing as powerful as gravity pulling falling stars from the sky.
Clarke broke the kiss to gasp for air, bringing her hand up to tangle in his hair, pulling him forward until their foreheads touched. She wanted to dive back into the heat of him and lose herself in a sea of desperate kisses. She could kiss him forever and not tire of it. She’d always known. And she’d always resisted the tides pulling her towards Bellamy because she’d been too afraid to lose him. She keened in the back of her throat, forcing herself to pull away.
There wasn’t time.
She pulled back far enough to see his face and soaked in every detail. His wild tangle of dark curls, his cheeks flushed and lips kiss swollen, his dark eyes fierce and determined, reflecting back her own desire. Her own resolve. Bellamy was with her, to the end. It would have to be enough.
“Together?” Clarke asked, bringing up the Flame between them.
“Together,” he said. “I will bring you back.”
“Good,” she said. “Ascende superius.”
Then she closed her eyes and swallowed the Flame, praying Lexa, please help me, and felt it burning: first in her belly, then like a shot to her brain and everything was melting and she had to find the kill code and-