Lightning Only Strikes Once - Clexa

Chapter 65: Total Emancipation

"Clarke, what was that?" Abby cries out, as soon as Clarke manages to drag her inside the tent. Jackson's half-carrying her mother and she's pale and sweating, but Abby still manages to look more vibrant than most people look uninjured.

"Are you talking about the executions or the position I've been given?" Clarke says. She doesn't mean to sound cold, but she's really tired of every adult from the Ark (well, apart from Kane and possibly Cole) questioning every decision she makes.

"Both," Abby says flatly. They stand there for a moment, just staring at each other, and then Clarke steps forward and Abby grabs her in a fierce hug, abandoning the argument for the moment. "I'm so glad you're okay, baby, you scared the hell out of me," Abby says fervently into her hair. Jackson looks at Clarke and, when she gives him a meaningful look, he nods and leaves them with each other.

"You scared me too, Mom," Clarke murmurs. "You scared me too."

"I love you so much."

"Love you too."

They stand like that for a very long time until Abby pulls back, eyes wet. "Clarke, I don't understand what's going on. All those people, killing them like that, in cold blood..." She still leans on Clarke, unable to put weight on her injured leg.

"They killed Arkers for bone marrow ," Clarke points out. "They killed Grounders for blood. They didn't object, they didn't try and stop it, they enjoyed using our people as medication. On the Ark we would have killed them without a second thought."

"That's different," Abby objects. "Up there we had to be ruthless."

"Well, down here they have to be ruthless as well," Clarke says. The swords flash again and again in her mind's eye, and she feels a powerful rush of nausea. Should she have prevented it? Could she have prevented it? Did she agree to their execution because it kept the most people possible alive? Did she choose the coldest, most pragmatic route, wanting to avoid the impossibility of arguing on their behalf? Or did she give in to her hatred of the Maunon? She doesn't know. But she knows that their blood soaking the ground will be in her dreams tonight, and her mother isn't helping.

Clarke takes a deep breath. She thinks of Lexa, who judges herself just as harshly for her actions, and how much she wishes Lexa could see herself the way Clarke sees her. That Lexa could give herself a break. She knows Lexa wants the same thing for her, as well, and because she loves Lexa she tries to see in herself what Lexa sees. She loves Lexa for being willing to do what was necessary to compromise and keep the most people alive, and she knows Lexa loves her for giving their people justice instead of granting the Maunon undeserved forgiveness to make herself feel better. They did their best. They are both still doing their best. That will have to be good enough.

"We would never have condemned a whole people when all they wanted to do was survive. We're better than that, Clarke, we're the good guys. When we killed people on the Ark we killed them for good reasons. And it wasn't like that, it wasn't violent and cruel," Abby continues heedlessly.

"You taught me medicine," Clarke snaps, breathing in sharply and trying not to throw up. She closes her eyes for a second, struggling for control. "I know what happens when people are floated. It takes them at least fifteen seconds to pass out, fifteen seconds of every exposed part of them swelling up agonisingly, fifteen seconds of all the liquid on their skin and in their eyes and mouth boiling off into space painfully. Don't talk to me about cruelty. Being bloodless doesn't make spacing people merciful. Today, the Maunon died quickly. That's the best we could do. And they killed our people, Mom, they killed Alpha Station."

"President Wallace helped us," Abby says stubbornly, though she looks wrong-footed by Clarke's description of decompression.

"And he hurt the Grounders," Clarke says simply, forcing herself to remember that one truth. "You heard Lexa, he was responsible for lots of deaths."