Lightning Only Strikes Once - Clexa

Chapter 63: Taking Stock

When Clarke's world swims back into focus again, she immediately tries to sit up. "Lexa -"

"Easy, Clarke," Lexa says sharply, supporting her.

The world seems very bright, swirling dizzily around her as she fights her way back to consciousness, purple spots blinking in front of her vision. Everything seems to sway a little and she gags, but then manages to orient herself. "How... how long have I been asleep?"

"Around fifteen hours," Lexa says. Now that Clarke looks at her, she can see that Lexa is very tired, the darkness under her eyes and the angles of her face more pronounced than normal.

"I asked you to stay with me," Clarke remembers, and winces. "Sorry. You should have gotten some sleep, you must have been up for nearly forty-eight hours straight now."

"I have stayed awake for longer," Lexa says wryly. "I would have been too worried to sleep, anyway."

Clarke snuggles into the warm, strong arms supporting her, selfishly glad that Lexa is still here. "Come nap with me, then," she says sleepily, and yawns.

"That sounds good, ai niron," Lexa says quietly, giving Clarke's forehead a kiss.

Then Clarke's eyes slam open. "My mother -"

"Well. Jackson cares for her," Lexa says firmly. "For a time she was sedated so he could undertake some work on her knee, but she woke up several hours ago and appears to be getting better from the virus slowly."

"The others?"

"Twenty-three of our people died in the assault on the Mountain, killed in the crossfire or executed by the Maunon before we could get them out. Octavia was up many hours ago – she is immune, as you said. Her torture will leave scars but she is already showing them with pride to the other Sekens and Linkon and none of her injuries will permanently incapacitate her."

"That sounds like Octavia," Clarke says, almost amused, even though she feels tears come to her eyes at the thought of the two dozen of their people who have died. She opens her mouth to ask more about her mother's knee, then closes it again. She saw the shot. She knows it's very likely her mother will need crutches or at least a cane the rest of her life. Instead, she asks, "How about the Maunon? How many died?"

"Anya has – most unwillingly – been keeping track of their numbers with Dante," Lexa tells her. "Twelve have died from the virus, and around seventy died in our invasion of the place – though he suspects some died before at his son's hands. Around three hundred remain alive."

"Tsing, Cage, Emerson?"

"All alive," Lexa says firmly. After a pause, she adds, "Though I do not believe we can leave them that way."

Clarke considers it. No, she doesn't think so, either. Partially because she thinks they would be a threat someday if they were left alive. And also because she got closure from destroying the Mountain, but she isn't the only one who needs that – all of Lexa's people, and now all of her people, have lost someone at the hands of the Maunon. They need to pay.

"And the rest of them," Lexa says, watching her carefully, "Do you have any thoughts?"

Clarke swallows, and hopes what she's about to say isn't too bloodthirsty. "We leave alive everyone below the age of twenty or so and everyone who refused to take bone marrow until it was volunteered," she proposes. If she's worked it out correctly, that probably means executing somewhere between two hundred and ten to two hundred and thirty Mountain Men. It curdles her stomach a little, but if what they're trying to do is gradually introduce 'blood must not have blood', then it's an acceptable compromise. Most of the Maunon die. But some survive. And after decades, the Grounders finally get something approaching justice for the way they've been treated.