The Graveyards We Leave Behind

The fight against Jaha's mind controlled army was tough to say the least. When they had begun to beat Bellamy Nyx's heart broke being unable to help him. She didn’t think it could break any more after she saw Roan get hit with that bullet. He was no where to be found afterward. She thought he was dead, and it took everything in her to keep from crying as her sword cut down body after body remembering Lincoln say a warrior does not mourn their dead until the battle is won.

When they did win, when Clarke managed to destroy Allie, Nyx could not hold the tears back. Echo took her to him, despite herself, being unable to listen to the heart wrenching sobs. When she saw him on his bed soaked in sweat, dying before her eyes, that did not help with the tears either. Still, she waits patiently knowing he is strong enough to make it.

Echo wanted to take Polis for Azgeda. She thought of it as a present for her king. Thankfully, Abby was able to treat Roan's wound convincing Echo to wait for Roan to get better before making any rash decisions. She was not happy with the sky girl soliciting her king's company, nevertheless Echo let Nyx stay with Roan until he woke. Beneath the ice she had a heart.

Nyx thinks that the moment he opened his eyes again is the happiest she's ever been. "I thought you were gone," she cries into the crook of his neck, and he lets the cold tears tickle his skin for a moment before reacting.

"You can't get rid of me that easy," he tells her wincing as he wraps his arms around her. In his dying dreams he'd held her. He thought it was all over so his mind let him weave a tale of family and children and peace. His story was beautiful, but this moment with her is better. "How long has it been since you've eaten?" he asks noticing she felt impossibly bonier.

Nyx shrugs in response to his question. She doesn't care to admit it even thought she does know. She probably hasn't had a crumb since the day they left to look for Clarke two weeks ago. Echo brought fresh bread and meat everyday, but she had no appetite. Her head was pounding from the alcohol withdrawal too, but she refused to leave his side except to use the bathroom.

"Nyx," Roan's tone is like a warning on her ears as he sits up to scold her.

"No, Roan, you have to rest," she protests trying to push him down. She is too weak, and he gets up.

"I've rested enough," he tells her, pushing himself up off the bed.

She is sure that she has never met a stronger man as she looks up at his tired face.

"Roan," now she is warning him. She doesn't know what she'll do, but she'll find a way to keep him in that bed.

"Do you want to take a walk?" he asks ignoring her heeding. He could buy her something to eat at the market. She always liked that.

"Just lay down, Roan," she insists reaching over to take a bite out of the loaf of bread on the table. "I'll eat, please, just lay down," she promises as she takes another bite and even a sip of water.

He smiles as he watches her eat lying down in compromise. After a few more bites she joins him on the bed. He seems satisfied for now so she makes herself snug. The familiar feel of his body is comforting all the way to her bones. She feels a tear fall onto the pillow under her head as the vivid memories of losing him flashback through her mind. When he catches a glimpse of that emptiness he places his hand on her face.

"Tell me what he did to you," Roan insists. He knows now why she wouldn’t tell him when he asked her the first night they spent together. The man that broke her was alive and well, and she had spent countless days surviving with him. Maybe this isn't the right time to insist, but Roan resolved that there would never be a right time for a conversation like this.

Nyx's eyes look up at his, "what do you mean? No one did anything. I've been here with you." Nyx is confused by the question, and there are nervous butterflies tickling her belly.

"Bellamy," the name leaves his mouth like a regret, but he has to know.

Nyx's eyes grow wide. How did he find out about Bellamy? "Roan," she sighs, "I don't think we need to talk about that." The idea of talking about another man she loves with him seems ill-advised.

"You promised me if I didn't die that you'd tell me. Well now it's been twice that I haven't died," he tries to be smart with her.

Nyx swallows hard. The butterflies in her stomach feel like they're going to make a hole in her body. She is scared that he will push her away now that he knows, but he does deserves the truth.

"I was a little girl when I fell in love with him," Nyx beings. The nostalgia in her eyes tugs at Roan's heart. "My parents were both dead by the time I was 12, and I lived with Bellamy and his mother. I had found out about Octavia then. She was my best friend." When the name rolls off her tongue she almost cries, so sorry for Lincoln's fate, and so worried for Octavia's future.

"He kissed me for the first time just a year later. We were together for the next few years," there is a smile on her lips that Roan doesn’t fail to see. It makes him squint his eyes with jealousy, but he hold back from interrupting. "Then the Ark imprisoned his sister and killed his mother, and everything went downhill from there. He blamed me for it even though I warned him they would get caught. He had been training to be a guard at the time, and it was all he ever wanted since I can remember. They took that from him too. Made him clean toilets. He was 21, three years older than me. If you think I drink a lot, then you should have seen Bellamy," she tells Roan. The discomfort in his eyes in growing but she doesn’t notice because she's too scared to look him in the eye.

"Every time I saw him, he was drunk. All the times I didn't see him, he was with other girls. I didn’t believe it at first when people started talking," a tear slides down the side of her cheek and onto the bed, and Roan feels his heart flutter. He wants to kiss her, to tell her he loves her, but he refuses to interject. "I stood by him that whole year, believing that he loved me, that he wouldn’t do something like. Then I walked in on him one day." She doesn't describe what she'd seen, but Roan understands what she means. The ache hasn't left her she just shields it by this vacuum she creates in her eyes. "I didn’t talk to him since, until we came here, of course, but only when I had to," she defends. She feels the admission is like a betrayal. The pain in her voice is so strong it felt like a blade in his chest.

"The next couple years I was alone. I had no one. With Octavia in prison he was my only family left, and he threw me away. I decided life didn’t matter any more - what is the point when you have nothing to live for? My life became just about surviving every day, pushing the feelings I had for him along with the pain to the back of my mind. For those two years, and even when I landed here, I spent every night with a man - any man - in attempt to feel alive again. It was only a distraction," she is ashamed but fights the tears in her eyes hoping he doesn't leave her now too.

To her surprise, Roan wraps an arm around her in comfort. He doesn't understand how any man that has her can just let her go. How many had she been with after Bellamy? And none of them tried to help her? To love her? Skaikru thinks the grounders are savages, but they have no leg to stand on. He decides that her people are the barbarians because at least his still have values, and he will show her what it means to be treated like a queen.

"I'm sorry," he whispers to her. "I know what it feels like to be alone," he adds recalling all the years he spent in banishment. Nyx's eyes finally look over at him as she realizes he doesn't hold anything against her.

"Before I laid with you, I made you promise that I would be the only one," he starts, and she looks into his eyes with a hint of fear at what he might say next. "By spending that night with you, I made you that same promise," he finishes, and Nyx's heart flurries into a snowstorm of emotion. If she had fears that he would judge her, they were washed away instantly.

She leans her head forward to give him a kiss, careful not to hurt the wound in his chest.

"I love you, Nyx," the words are red and blue and violet as they fall on her ears and swirl in her mind. She has never heard them directed at her before. His eyes are like a dark caramel with a swirl of honey. They peer into her heart longingly, and when she looks into them there is no question of if his words are true. They are true. She can see it.

He watches her closely. Observing the emptiness fade completely, and seeing it overcome by adoration. He strokes her cheek with his thumb. He does not expect her to say it. There is a sense of sorrow in him as he suspects the other man still carries her heart with him because people always leave pieces of themselves in those they love. It does not matter though, because it does not change how he feels about her, and he would destroy this world just to put her on top of it - to make her feel like there is something to live for.

"I love you too, Roan," she confesses. His heart flutters when he hears the words. His lack of expectation has returned a bountiful treasure. There is a sense of gratefulness in her. She feels as if he has saved her, but he knows she is the one who has has saved him.

Moments later the door is flung open by Echo in full face paint, and the beautiful scene they've created is destroyed. "Good, you're finally awake. We have work to do," she demands with her hands on her hips.

"Hey," Nyx defends, "it's too soon - he needs time."

"We don't have time," Echo sneers; her eyes look at Nyx with despise. "You don’t need to have a queen yet, my King," Echo begins, "but this one will not be allowed near the throne."

"Echo," Roan warns. His voice is powerful as it booms through the room. It wraps Nyx up like a blanket, and she finds peace within herself knowing he has chosen her.

"They will kill you before they accept her," Echo warns back with a scowl.

"Surely this is not the most pressing matter you come to me with as I climb out of my deathbed," Roan says to her wishing that she would drop it.

"No, this is," Clarke's voice fills the room as she walks in with the flame in hand. "I need to speak to you. Alone," she insists, a little uncomfortable.

"Anything you need to say to me you can say in front of Nyx," he defends before sitting down at the table to take a sip of water.

"It's not Nyx I'm concerned about," Clarke says as she eyes they spy.

Echo rolls her eyes. She is never privy to these conversations, but she takes comfort knowing she has Roan's ear so she excuses herself and shuts the door behind her.

"I am giving you the flame until another nightblood is found," she entrusts to Roan sticking her arm out and setting the box on the table.

"Why?" Nyx demands, suspicious because she knows that Clarke would never give up Lexa's spirit.

"Before I flipped the kill switch in the City of Light, Allie warned me that the end of the world is coming. It's true. The nuclear reactors are overheating. We only have a few months to figure out how to survive the radiation," she warns.

"Praimfaya is not survivable," he realizes, looking to Nyx with a sigh of despair. He had only found her, and now their time is ending.

"We will find a way, together," Clarke insists. That is something Nyx always admired about her - that raging hope.

Roan nods and begins to dress. Nyx helps him pull the shirt over his head and then his armor before she puts her own on. He had the horn sound for a council meeting so there in the throne room Nyx stands to the side adjusting her cuirass. Her eyes are searching the crowd in fear that someone will attempt a coup against a weakened king.

In front of the thirteen ambassadors Roan holds up the flame. "I will serve as acting commander and as keeper of the flame until a natblida is found," his voice fills the room with authority. There are hushed whispers as the people watch him raise the flame up into the air wondering how he came to have it. "Until then and in honor of Lexa, Skaikru will remain as the thirteenth clan in the coalition. Any attack against Skaikru, is an attack on us all," he warns the ambassadors looking each one of them in the eye.

Nyx's hand is on the machete that sits at her hip, ready to kill for Roan at the first sign of unrest. However, to her surprise none of the ambassadors utter a word. Nyx waits patiently until everyone has left the throne room before she retreats to Roan's bed for the night.

The morning following the council meeting there is a knock on the doors of Roan's chambers. He sits at the table eating his meal so she gets up to open them. Her eyes fall on Echo who has brought Clarke with her.

Clarke begins to beg Nyx to come back to the Ark. She insists that everyone is worried about her. "If you blame me for running away before, then let me save you the trouble of future blame and tell you not run," Clarke advises.

Roan stays silent. He doesn't want her to leave, but it is not his place to speak on her behalf.

"I have no place at the Ark," Nyx says, "my place is here with Roan." Her eyes swing to Echo, watching the girl's mouth turn into a scowl. Nyx has grown accustomed to it by now, but she wishes the spy had her back at least in this instance.

"I'll stay with him," Octavia's voice falls on her ears. She stands at the open doors looking as tough as she was all those years ago. Nyx wants to run over and hug her, but the emptiness in Octavia's eyes seems to warn her to stay back. If they can cut through Nyx like that, she wonders what they do to everyone else.

"I don't need protection," Roan decides to interject. Nyx goes to sit and the other two girls follow, leaving Echo standing in the doorway to observe.

"Roan," she begins, "you're hurt. I can't leave you here by yourself."

"Nyx. You may not see them as your people anymore, but they see you as theirs," Clarke says. "They need to see you again. Nate and Bellamy, they need you, Nyx."

Her heart jumps at Bellamy's name, and her eyes gaze over to Roan's as a sense of guilt overcomes her. Bellamy always finds a way to make her a mess even when he isn’t there.

Roan reaches over to grab a hold of her hand squeezing it in reassurance. Though there is a pit of worry in his belly, he knows she loves him and would never betray his trust. "Go," Roan tells her, "Clarke is right. Your people do need to see you. I'll be here waiting when you come back."

Clarke watches the interaction between the two. She is very confused. Wasn’t Nyx in love with Bellamy? What had changed? Was it Pike? Maybe this visit would be an opportunity for them to reunite under the veil of a shaky peace.

"I won't leave his side," Octavia encourages, and Nyx nods in response.

She stands to leave a kiss on his forehead eliciting a snort from the spy. Roan looks up at her, his eyes saying 'I love you.'

"I'll be back in a few days," she tells him letting go of his hand and turning to leave reluctantly.

"Clarke," she is surprised to hear Roan call before they walk out. "Make sure she eats," he says with a smirk on his face. Nyx laughs, walking out of his room and toward the lift to start the trek back to the Ark she never thought she would take again.