Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sometimes the world moves like a film on fast forward, blurring by in smudges of color and vaguely identifiable shapes while Lexa stands still. It is an unreal sort of feeling, a floating sort of feeling, that makes her feel...

It makes her feel. That in and of itself is enough to make it uncomfortable.

The world is not meant to be a comfortable place, Lexa's mother would have said. The world is meant to be experienced.

Lexa is only twenty when she feels like she's experienced the entire weight of it, the whole world settling on the rigid line of her shoulders and the stoic arrangement of her face. What is there to feel from here?

There are no colors in the world today, only the harsh streaks of black as everyone shuffles away from the freshly dug graves they stand beside. There are consoling squeezes to her shoulder and hand, words of comfort murmured by strangers, but Lexa is not moved by them. She does not say much in response. She does not cry. She does not open the umbrella she clutches at her side like a sword to defend herself against the rain.

She simply stands, blank and staring, at the coffins that hold what remains of her parents.

Peter and Brooke Woods, both dead on impact when their plane crashed minutes after takeoff, barely anything left for their daughter to bury.

The headline had made every major news outlet from DC to the west coast, if not globally. Not for the tragedy of a small, private plane crashing and killing three people (including the pilot), but for the sheer power of the name involved. Peter Woods was known far and wide as the CEO of the Woods hotels and resorts, as well as several casinos. His enterprise was stretched worldwide, a stronghold in the hospitality industry.

The Woods are, to put it simply, some of the richest people in the world.

And everyone knows that all of that power, all of that responsibility, all of that money now belongs to the sole heir of the Woods name.

Lexa.

Lexa knows it too. She knows the weight of what she now carries and understands that the success of the company hinges on her ability to keep herself together. Any signs of weakness, and the sharks will circle and devour her (Nia Jadis already scents blood in the water).

It's a lot, but she can handle it. She is her father's daughter, after all.

(I swear, Lexa, if you turn up your nose any higher, you'll drown in the next rain, her mother would snort out, wrapping an arm around her daughter's stiff shoulders until she would soften and lean into her. Lexa would inhale her familiar perfume and sink into her hug, at home, always at home when her mother would hold her.

There's a lot of your father in you, she would murmur against Lexa's ear, but remember I'm in there too.

Lexa hurts. She hurts she hurts she hurts.)

//

//

The news is playing mutely on the television hanging from the ceiling of the hospital's waiting room. The subtitles flash across the screen, describing how 'hundreds of people showed up today for the funeral of Peter and Brooke Woods' and then continued with 'Lexa Woods, only twenty, is the sole benefactor of her parents' wills.' The girl herself is shown on camera, dressed all in black as she gets into a limo to leave the graveyard behind, her face serious but dry. No tears.

Clarke Griffin does not see the story, or the girl.

Her eyes are glued to the closed double doors, waiting, waiting. Beside her, her mother looks at the ground. The hand that holds Clarke's trembles in a way she's never known her mother to tremble. Their joint fear is tangible.

Jake Griffin can't die. He can't leave them.

He can't, he can't, he can't...

But he does.

Finally, finally, those door open. Dr. Jackson approaches, his surgical cap in his hands, his face set in sympathetic lines before he even reaches them. And Clarke knows. Watching him, she can see it already. She can all but hear the words he is no doubt rehearsing in his head, trying to decide on a way to tell a friend that her husband is dead.

Clarke is the daughter of a doctor, so she knows.

She must give some sign. A twitch, a squeeze of her fingers, a whimper, something. Something that alerts Abby, whose head snaps up quickly, her eyes focusing immediately on Jackson. And like Clarke, she knows. Unlike Clarke, she crumples. Before he can even reach them, she cries out and curls into herself and Clarke is there.

She's there, she's there, but it isn't enough. Not for either of them.

Clarke holds her mother and stares, but she is blind. Will she ever see again, without her father there to point out what is beautiful? He was the one who gave her the eyes of an artist. He was the one who made the world bright and vivid with detail. He was the one who encouraged Clarke to create.

He is dead.

Jake, why are we pulling over? Abby would ask.

Look at this! Look how amazing it is! Jake would say, jumping from the car. Kiddo, come here. Check this out.

Abby would roll her eyes, but Clarke would get out, and she'd move into the disgustingly filthy alley beside her father, and she would see the used condoms and broken glass and anatomically incorrect dicks spray painted onto the wall. But, like Jake, she would also see the way the sun was shining through the glass at just the right angle so that rainbows glittered on the ground. She would see the art in the signature of the artist for the hideous graffiti, more creative than the actual picture. She would smile.

And Jake would sling an arm around her shoulders, still grinning. Gotta see the beautiful through the bullshit, kiddo, he would say, and he would kiss the top of her head while Abby honked the horn to call them back to the car.

She cries, but later.

They are driving home when she cracks, the sob shaking her entire body with its intensity. Abby jerks the car over to the shoulder and reaches, pulling her in, holding her close. “We'll be okay, Clarke,” she whispers, stroking Clarke's hair.

Clarke shakes her head and clings to her mother's shirt. It won't. It won't be okay, not without him. Not without her father.

She can't see.

Chapter Text

Lexa Woods is tired.

The Woods name is a heavy burden to bear, but Lexa has spent the last five years of her life carrying it by herself and performing admirably. They call her a visionary, and so she is. The changes she'd put into motion have transformed the business in a way her father had never dreamed of, and the risks she's taken had paid off. The Woods empire is thriving.

But Lexa is still tired.

She stands at the window of her office, looking out over the city that is so far below, and wonders what it's like to be any one of the thousands of people who pass by Woods Tower every day. Leading a normal life, doing normal things, not worrying about stock and investors and performance ratings and all the other things she looks into during a typical day. She wonders what they do when they aren't working at these jobs that don't consume their lives. Do they go out to drink with friends? Do they watch television shows with regularity? Do they read thick paperback novels about pirates and cowboys and vampires and whatever other ridiculous thing people are writing about now?

Do they go home to someone every night who wraps around them and asks about their day?

“Lexa. Lexa, are you even listening to me?”

Lexa turns back towards the center of the room, watching as Anya paces the length of her office. Back and forth, back and forth, like a lioness with her mane of messy blonde hair and sharp, angry eyes. She is, without a doubt, the strangest thing Lexa's pristine office has ever seen the likes of, all leather jacket and torn jeans. But she fits. She's always fit with Lexa, however different they might be, since the boarding school days. The thought nearly makes her smile. Nearly.

“No,” she tells her honestly, watching as her oldest friend stops and shoots her a glare. “I'm sorry, Anya. I have a lot on my mind and we've had this discussion before.”

“But you don't ever take the time to actually fucking consider it.” Anya stops her pacing and moves to the desk, pressing her palms flat against it as she leans in and eyes Lexa across its surface. “You're twenty-fucking-five years old, Lexa, not fifty-two. You need to live your life, not your dad's.” Lexa's lips press tightly together at the comment, but Anya's known her too long to obey the warning. “When's the last time you did something just for you?”

Lexa tilts her head, considers. “Last week,” she decides with a shift of her shoulders, hands resting on the back of her desk chair. “I had a glass of wine and watched a film.” Half a glass, and it had been a documentary on entrepreneurship that had been quite dull, but she wasn't about to tell Anya any of that. She doesn't need to. Anya's eyes are already narrowing and she knows she's about to have her lie called out.

“Bullshit.” Yes, Anya knew her well. “When is the last time you actually got out, Woods? Not to like, a business dinner or some fancy opera, but out? The way a twenty-something-year-old is supposed to go out?”

Lexa sighs a little and doesn't answer. She knows what Anya means. When is the last time she went out to a bar with some friends? When is the last time she'd gone out on a date? When is the last time she'd had sex? She doesn't answer, but she knows exactly when it was she'd last done any of that.

Before.

Before her parents' deaths, before she'd been handed more responsibility than any twenty-year-old should be handed, before everything in her life became about business. Too long, really.

Anya softens slightly and circles around the desk, leaning her ass against it now as she watches Lexa. “Look, I get it. Life totally shit on you and you had to take a step back for a while to get things sorted out. But it's sorted, Woods. Hire someone else to fill your position now and live it up. You think Paris Hilton's ever gonna be acting CEO of their hotels?” Anya sneers at the idea of it and Lexa can't help but smile, just a bit.

“I'm not hiring someone to take over what's mine,” she replies, as she had every single time Anya had tried to convince her to hand over the reins. “But if you stop bothering me about it, I'll go out with you on a night of your choosing. Deal?”

Anya lifts her eyebrows, a grin spreading slowly. “Deal. For now.” She takes Lexa's forearm even as Lexa takes hers and gives it a quick squeeze. It had been their handshake since childhood, and any promise made with such a handshake can't be broken. “I pick tonight.”

“What? Anya.”

“No arguing. We shook. I pick tonight, Woods. It's Friday. Stop working and come out with me. Dancing, drinking, scoring. You used to like that shit.”

Lexa sighs and rakes a hand through her hair. “Fine. Tonight. But try to have some class with your choice of venue, and get your ass off of my desk. It's a Chippendale.” She swats at Anya until she obliges, shoving off the desk with a roll of her eyes.

“Tonight. I'll swing by your place around eight to pick you up. We're not taking a limo.” She pauses with a hand on the doorknob and shoots a look over her shoulder, eying the huge, polished desk before glancing to Lexa again. “How much did that desk cost you?”

“Three thousand. Why?”

Anya sends her a pitying look. “Yeah, we really need to get you out of here.”

And then she leaves, slamming Lexa's office door behind her. Lexa stares after her for several long minutes before she turns back to the window to resume her study of the people below.

//

“How do I look?”

When the silence stretches, Clarke turns towards her friends, just catching the tail end of the look they exchanged. “What?” she demands, setting her fists on her hips as she looks from one to the other.

Raven squints at her, shifting up from where she lay sprawled on her stomach across Clarke's bed to situate herself more firmly beside Octavia. “Well...”

“Clarke, do you want us to be honest or do you want us to tell you that you look good?” Octavia cuts in.

Raven shoots her a look. “Savage.”

“She asked.”

“True.”

“Guys.” Clarke curls her fingers in her hair and tugs, wondering for the tenth time in the last hour why she is friends with these assholes. They were the ones who'd stormed into her apartment, demanding she get dressed and go out with them. They were the ones who'd opened her closet, grabbed armloads of clothes, and tossed them onto the bed, telling her to pick an outfit for the night. Now they're telling her that what she's wearing isn't good enough. “What's wrong with this? Classic little black dress. It goes anywhere.”

“Clarke, we're going out clubbing, not to a cocktail party. Jesus.” Raven stands, pressing a hand to her upper thigh to brace it as she turns back towards the clothes still strewn across the mattress. “You don't look bad. You just don't look...”

“Hot,” Octavia supplies, shooting Clarke a grin. “Bangable. Sexy. Fuck worth-”

“I get it.” Clarke rolls her eyes and sighs, looking down at the dress. It pisses her off that they're right. Damn it. She used to be good at this, going out a drinking and hooking up and... all of it. She used to be the queen of partying. But med school's been kicking her ass and it's been a while since she's gone to something that isn't a fundraiser or a gala or whatever other event her mother drags her to in order to secure some connections. “Shit. I'm really out of practice.”

Raven snorts out a laugh and finally selects something from the pile, holding it up against herself. “O?” she prompts, and Octavia looks over, pursed her lips, and nods her assent. “Cool. Here, Clarke. Put this on.”

“And take this off. Maybe burn it.” Octavia yanks down the zipper on her dress and pushes it off her shoulders. Clarke steps out of it and nudges it aside before grabbing the offered dress from Raven. It's tight and blue and low cut. A pre-med Clarke Griffin dress. Pre-pre-med, even. Before her father had died, before she'd switched majors and focused on biology instead of visual arts. She stares at herself in the mirror and feels her two halves blur, feels the tug of yearning for the person she no longer was.

This Clarke Griffin doesn't exist anymore. This Clarke Griffin was an artist, carefree and happy and exciting to be around. She doesn't mesh with the serious, studious, and too-busy Clarke Griffin of today. She wants to tug this dress off her body and toss it away, wants to trash it with all the other clothes she hasn't worn in years.

But then Octavia wolf whistles and slaps her ass, declaring her “totally fuckable.” Then Raven grins and slings an arm around her bare shoulders, saying, “Now this is a hot dress.” And Clarke decides that maybe she can be this Clarke tonight, just for a little while.

//

Club Trigeda is loud and dark and filled with just a hint of curling fog from machines placed strategically throughout. The beat that reverberates throughout the speakers makes the floor vibrate beneath its patrons' feet as they dance to the pumping club remixes. It's the hottest new club in the city and is nearly impossible to get into, but Octavia's boyfriend is one of the bouncers so he let them slip in about two hours ago. And the club is hot.

Clarke hasn't been to a club, or even a bar, in about three years. Not since she'd buckled down and decided to focus on med school instead of art. She'd forgotten how much she enjoyed the dancing and the drinking and the carefree party vibe. But in the two hours since their arrival, she had relearned her appreciation for it all, and had rather recklessly indulged herself in copious amounts of liquor.

Copious amounts. That was what her dad would've called a top dollar phrase.

Octavia and Raven stay close, both amused at the return of the girl whom they had once referred to as “party-hard Griffin.” As much as they love Clarke now, this was the version of their friend they'd both first befriended, and Clarke was pretty sure that they were both relieved to know that she still has that girl in her. “I'm going to get another drink,” she calls to them over the pounding bass, tapping the side of her empty glass for emphasis. She's gone before either of them can respond.

“She's completely trashed,” Raven observes, tossing back the last of her own drink.

“Completely,” Octavia echoes, and there's just a bit too much cheer there for her to be considered anything other than trashed herself.

Raven rolls her eyes. “I'm never convincing either of you to do tequila shots again.”

Clarke makes it to the bar and pushes forward through the crowd until she stands pressed against it, palms flat on the smooth, polished wood. It's cool to the touch and Clarke nearly lays her head down on it. She is sure it will feel amazing against her flushed face.

The bartender notices her before she can, however, and tilts her head, a clear question. “Jack and Coke,” she called out, and she's pretty sure there's no way the bartender can hear her over this music, but she nods anyway and turns away to make her drink. Clarke watches, eyes on the pretty blonde's ass. Niylah, she remembers. She'd asked when she'd been more sober, and Clarke has a good enough memory that it sticks. For a moment, she lets herself consider giving her number to her. She considers what it would be like to bring Niylah home, to push her down on her bed, to straddle her hips and take her for a ride.

It's a brief and satisfying vision, one she abandons because she figures bartenders get hit on all the time. She doesn't want to be one of those people. So Clarke turns her attention instead to the other people surrounding the bar, taking her time to people watch while Niylah makes her drink.

If she turns her head right, she can see the pair of frat bro types standing beside her, both of their attention on the girl that stands between them with a grin on her face that suggests she knows just what she's doing. There are a pair of girls just beyond them, grabbing another round of drinks for them and their friends.

If she looks left...

Clarke does so, startled to find herself looking directly into the eyes of a girl who doesn't quite blend in this crowd. She is startlingly pretty, for one, with lips that are quirked into something that isn't quite a smile and eyes that are trapped somewhere in the middle of blue and green. She's standing close enough to Clarke that she can see the two colors warring for dominance, each bleeding into the other so that her eyes are somehow both. And for two, she doesn't wear a clubbing dress, or even tight jeans. She wears instead black slacks that are obviously tailored to her long legs and a loosely fit white button down that is not tailored at all. There's a tie around her neck, also black, though it's clearly been loosened. Probably because it's warm, Clarke thinks, and then wonders why such an inane thought would come to mind when she is staring at possibly the prettiest girl she's ever seen.

“Hi,” Clarke says, smiling slowly as she meets those eyes again.

“Hello,” the girl returns, eyebrows lifting. The not-quite-a-smile grows a fraction and Clarke finds her eyes focusing there on that subtle curve lips.

Clarke shifts against the bar, leaning her hip against it so she can angle towards the other girl. “I'm Clarke.” She offers a hand, still watching her.

“Lexa.” There's a brief hesitation before the girl called Lexa reaches out, taking Clarke's hand with her own. Neither of them let go and their joined fingers hang between them, bridging the space between their bodies.

“Lexa. Pretty. Is it short for something?”

“No,” Lexa replies. “It's just Lexa.”

Clarke tilts her head. “Okay. Just-Lexa it is.”

Niylah returns with her drink then and Clarke takes it with a grateful smile, but her eyes hardly waver from Lexa's face. She is intrigued, and she is drunk, and she wants to lean in and taste those smirking lips. But she can't. No, she can't, Clarke Griffin is not that girl. She very much wants to be right now, but she isn't. So she finally drops Lexa's hand and sips her Jack and Coke. “Why are you wearing a suit, just-Lexa? Isn't it kind of hot in here?”

“I'm only wearing half a suit.” She lifts her own drink, eyes on Clarke's over the rim. Clarke feels the thrill of those eyes on her down to her toes. Drunk, she thinks again. So, so drunk.

“Why are you wearing half a suit at a club, then?” she asks, shifting closer when someone pushes behind her in an attempt to get to the bar. She's in Lexa's personal space now, close enough that she can smell the whiskey on her breath. Close enough that she can now observe those eyes of hers in minute detail and she finds herself mentally mixing paints before she can stop herself. She hasn't painted in... God, five years, but she wants to paint this girl's eyes.

Lexa is watching her and Clarke is pretty sure she's not nearly as drunk as Clarke is, but she's had enough that she doesn't shift away from her. And those eyes... Clarke is pretty sure they're focused on her lips now and she smiles again because she really doesn't mind it. “I came from the office,” Lexa murmurs, twisting her glass between her fingers.

“Hm. What do you do?”

“I-”

“Lexa!”

They both look over as another girl stumbles over, and this one is certainly as drunk as Clarke. Maybe even more drunk, which is saying something. She falls into Lexa's side and drapes an arm around her shoulder, rubbing her nose into her cheek. Lexa rolls her eyes at all of this, but Clarke notes how her arm reaches automatically to wrap around her waist, holding her steady where she stands. A warning flashes in her mind and she steps back automatically.

“Anya,” Lexa says. She speaks like they're in a business meeting rather than meeting at a club with all of them more than half drunk. “This is Clarke. Clarke, Anya. A friend of mine.”

“Friend,” Clarke echoes. She laughs a little and shakes her head. There is a keen stab of disappointment because they seem awfully close for just friends. “Right. Nice to meet you, Anya.” She offers her hand for a shake.

Anya turns her head and blinks, as if she'd only just noticed Clarke standing there. Then she's smirking and reaching out for Clarke's hand, shaking it firmly. “Clarke,” she repeats, and her smirk flashes at Lexa and back again. “Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt. Didn't see you there.”

“No, it's...” Clarke pushes away from the bar, waving a hand in dismissal while the other grips her drink. She looks to Lexa and Lexa is watching her already, but her expression is unreadable. Clarke looks at her another moment and then glances back to Anya. “It's no problem. I've got to get going anyway. My friends are waiting.” She turns her head and searches for them through the crowd, but there are too many people in between her and the table they're sitting at. “They'll be looking for me. Bye, Anya. Bye, Lexa.”

She turns her head and Lexa is still watching her. She dips her head in a small nod, but doesn't otherwise move. No protest, no offer to give her her number. Just the nod. “Goodnight, Clarke,” she murmurs.

Clarke can feel her eyes on her the entire time she walks away, but she doesn't look back.

//

There is a moment of silence and then, “She was fucking hot.”

“Anya.” Rolling her eyes, Lexa sips her drink again, turning her attention away from her friend.

“What? Just because my gate doesn't swing that way doesn't mean I can't appreciate. She's fucking hot and she was basically eye fucking you. Tell me you exchanged numbers or something.”

“You don't know what you're talking about,” Lexa mumbles, even as her belly swoops. She'd definitely been flirting. And she was really attractive. It has been years since Lexa bothered with that kind of thing, about as long as its been since she'd been clubbing, and she sips her drink to wet her suddenly dry throat.

“Am I blind?”

“You're extremely drunk.”

“But not blind.” Smug, Anya orders another drink and then leans against the bar beside Lexa. Their silence is comfortable, both of them looking out at the crowd. When Anya's head lolls toward her again, Lexa sighs and looks down at her, eyebrows lifted. “Did you get her number?”

“I'm not looking for a relationship right now,” Lexa mumbles.

“Who said anything about a relationship? Did you get it or not, Lex?”

She sighs. “No.”

“Idiot.”

Lexa doesn't answer. But she thinks that yeah, maybe she is.

Chapter Text

A trip to the mall is hardly on Lexa's list of every day activities, but she is in a hurry and it's one of those things she needs to buy herself. She doesn't trust her assistant to pick out a good gift for a twelve-year-old boy. Then again, she doesn't really trust herself to buy the right gift either.

“No,” she says, bracing her phone between her shoulder and her ear as she flips through a rack of boys' clothes, frowning as she glances at the sizes. How tall is Aden now? She isn't sure and shakes her head, turning away. “We aren't moving on that yet, Indra. I want to wait until-- hm.” She listens as her CFO explains the problem again and tries not to sigh while she's poking at a shelf of robotic dinosaurs. Is Aden too old for one of those? She thinks he might be.

“No,” she says again, turning her back on the display. The phone beeps in her ear and she grabs it again, pulling it back far enough to read the display as she leaves the store. “Indra, we'll discuss this again next week,” she says. “I have another call coming in. Figure out the place in Vancouver and we'll worry about San Diego later. Yes. Right, yes. Goodbye.”

She ends the call to Indra and switches over to Anya, sighing in exasperation. “What did you get Aden for his birthday?” she asks without preamble, restless as she moves through the mall.

“I got him a basketball hoop. And I got it for him like a month ago. Don't tell me plan-everything-in-advance Lexa left gift buying to the last minute.” Lexa can all but hear the smirk through the phone.

Restless, Lexa ducks into the nearest store where it's quieter, switching the phone to her other ear. “Of course I didn't. I was just wondering what you purchased.” Gifts are a personal thing and Lexa doesn't usually do personal. But this is Aden, and she's known Aden his entire life. She's just been so busy... Which is a terrible excuse and she knows it. Lexa sighs and glances up at last, finally taking in the store she's walked into. It registers that she's wandered into Yankee Candle and Lexa rolls her eyes at herself, wondering how she hadn't smelled it when she'd first walked in. Too distracted. She isn't likely to find a gift for Aden here.

“No? So you aren't out trying to get a gift for him right now?”

“Of course not,” Lexa snaps. She lifts a candle at random, sniffs it, hums because it actually smells really good. She tucks it under her arm and selects another, sniffing again.

“Well you aren't at the office because I stopped by.” Lexa freezes and curses inwardly. She should have known. “So...?”

“So what?”

“So where are you if you're not at the office?”

“Oh. I'm...” Lexa frowns and glances around her, hoping to be struck with some sort of inspiration. There's nothing but candles. Candles are for romance, she thinks with a thread of desperation. Romance, something her life lacks. Something Anya's been pushing her for. “On a date,” she says, spinning towards the cashier with her selections. “I'm on a date, Anya. A lunch date. I can't talk long.”

“Okay.” Anya's voice is tinged with laughter. She isn't buying it. Lexa rolls her eyes. It really isn't the most convincing lie she could have come up with. She hasn't been on a date in years and Anya knows that very well. “So what's her name, Lex?”

“Who?”

“The girl you're on a date with.”

“Oh.” Lexa looks around again, her eyes focusing on the name tag of the cashier as she sets her candles on the counter. “Clarke.” Clarke? Lexa's gaze snaps up, meeting the bright, amused eyes of the girl from the club.

“Clarke?” Anya echoes, and the laughter is gone. She obviously remembers the name as well. “As in, Clarke from Club Trigeda? I thought you didn't get her number? What the hell, Lexa? Have you slept together yet? Why didn't you tell me?”

“Yes, that's the one. I didn't. We... ran into each other later. No, we haven't. It's a recent development. I really have to go, Anya.”

“I don't believe you. Let me talk to her.”

“I'm not letting you talk to her,” Lexa replies sharply. “You'll scare her off.”

“So you are lying.”

“I'm not lying.” She is lying. She is lying with something bordering on desperation and it is for the stupidest reason in the world, but now that she's said it, she can't take it back. Behind the register, Clarke's smile has grown. She holds out a hand and Lexa lifts her eyebrows, a gesture that asks clearly, are you sure? When Clarke only opens and closes her fingers in a demanding motion, she manages to say, “Fine, hold on,” into the phone before she passes it over.

“Hello, Anya,” Clarke says. There's a stretch of silence and then she laughs. “I'm really real, standing right across from her as we speak. Lunch? It's great.” Clarke smiles at Lexa and Lexa looks back at her, stoic, silent. “Oh yeah, she went really fancy with it. I had to wear heels and everything.” Another silence, Clarke nodding along to whatever Anya is saying. “She doesn't? Well, glad to be an exception. Nice speaking with you too. Bye.” And with that, she passes the phone back to Lexa, pretending to dust off her hands.

“Satisfied?” Lexa says into the phone. “Now I really have to go.” Anya starts to rattle off a few more questions, but Lexa ignores her, says, “Goodbye,” and hangs up. Her eyes haven't left Clarke's and when she lowers her phone and shoves it in her pocket, Clarke is still smiling.

“So we're on a date, huh?” she says and Lexa feels the embarrassment flood her system. Still, she only shrugs, stepping closer to the counter.

“Apparently,” she murmurs, and Clarke's smile flashes wider, her eyes studying Lexa's face. “Thank you for the cover, by the way. I'm doing a last minute birthday shop and she would never let me hear the end of it otherwise.”

“No problem. You know, it's funny. At the club, I thought Anya was actually your girlfriend.” She laughs when she looks up and sees the look of horror on Lexa's face that she can't quite mask. “I see now that I read that whole thing wrong, since you're over here convincing her that you're dating me and all.” Clarke rings up her purchases and boxes them before settling them in a bag. “Are these the birthday presents? Because no offense, but candles are kind of boring.”

Lexa takes the bag and shakes her head. “No. The gift I'm looking for is for a twelve-year-old boy. I haven't quite managed to find one yet. I just came in here to get out of the noise.”

Clarke tilts her head. “Lucky me,” she says. “Now I can persuade you to pay me back for that phone call by taking me on an actual date.”

Lexa is surprised by how forward the words are. Not many people speak to her like that, and not many can get away with it. Lexa is surprised to find that she doesn't find it irritating in this situation. It's kind of attractive, the direct way Clarke says it, the way she watches her. But attraction isn't something Lexa is looking for. She doesn't date, doesn't have time. A casual fling after that night at the bar would have been one thing, but being who she is, she can't go on impulsive dates. She learned a long time ago that people will take advantage of a name without a thought for the person who bears it.

“I don't date,” she says quietly, sliding the handles of the bag over her wrist. “But thank you again for your help, Clarke.” She likes her name, likes the way it sounds, the way it feels when she says it. But she is sure that this will be the last time.

“That's a shame.” Clarke smiles again and there's no anger or annoyance in her face. Nor is there any desperation to reclaim Lexa's attention, which is something she'd dealt with before. She just nods and says, “It was my pleasure, just-Lexa,” before waving her off. Lexa hesitates another minute before nodding her head in return. She turns and steps toward the exit.

“Lexa?” Clarke calls out. When she turns, eyebrows lifted in question, Clarke points right. “If you go that way, there's a really nice sporting goods store down there. Always a good bet for a birthday present.” Lexa nods and thanks her again.

She leaves the store wondering if she's making a mistake, but she doesn't turn around.

//

Clarke jerks awake with a start, wincing at the sound of a tearing page. She'd fallen asleep at her kitchen table again, face pressed to her textbook. The page stuck to her with sweat and drool, and now it's torn from her abrupt shift to consciousness. Clarke eyes the book blearily before looking around her, noting that her apartment had gone dark while she was out. There is no light in her kitchen at all now. So she stands and stumbles her way towards the light switch, rubbing at a kink in her neck the whole way.

She flicks the light on, hissing as her eyes burn. Squinting up at the clock on the wall, she notes that it is just past ten, which means that she's been out cold at her table for about three hours. Christ. “I can't wait for summer,” she mutters as she turns the light off again, deciding to get some sleep instead of continuing to attempt studying. She could start fresh in the morning. Summer means hospital hours, not a break, but it's still less stressful than this.

Walking down the hall in the dark is muscle memory by now. This isn't the first time she's passed out over an anatomy textbook and it won't be the last. Walking to her room in the dark is ten times easier than turning on lights and blinding herself. She learned that the hard way.

Once she makes it to her room, Clarke face plants horizontally onto her bed, still fully dressed, and doesn't so much as twitch again.

She wakes to sunlight and the weight of a body sitting on her ass. It's a common enough occurrence that Clarke only groans and presses her face further into her blankets, swatting at one of the legs bracketing her waist. “You know, just because you have a key,” she mumbles, voice muffled by her bedding, “That doesn't mean you get to skip out on knocking.”

“I did knock,” Octavia argues cheerfully. “You were dead to the world, Griffin.” Leaning down, she presses a smacking kiss to the back of Clarke's head. “Come on, time to get up.”

Clarke gropes across the mattress until she finds a pillow, which she promptly tugs over her head. “Fuck off, Octavia.”

“Up.” Octavia lifts her hips, swatting sharply at Clarke's ass. Clarke yelps at the sharp contact and drags the pillow away to turn her head and glare up at her friend.

“I hate you,” she hisses, reaching back to rub at her ass.

“I brought you breakfast and a very large coffee from DeeDee's.”

Clarke narrows her eyes, considering. “I hate you a little less,” she decides. She shoves at Octavia again and rolls onto her back when she gets off of her, stretching her sore body. Finally, Clarke pushes herself up and glances at her alarm clock, wondering what the hell she's doing up at eight in the morning on a Saturday. She weighs the hour against the breakfast bribe, but DeeDee's coffee always wins and she sighs a little. “Give me fifteen minutes to shower and change before you talk to me,” she mumbles as she stands.

Octavia grins, salutes, and leaves her to it.

It takes her more than twenty minutes and when she finally emerges, Raven and Octavia are both in her kitchen. She holds up a hand before either of them can say anything and takes her coffee, gulping it down with a moan of pure, lusty appreciation. “Okay,” she says at last, eyes closed as she savors. “You can talk now.”

“Well. Murphy told Bellamy who told me-”

“Who told me-”

“That some hot girl was in the store flirting with you yesterday.”

Clarke stares. “Did you wake me up... at eight in the morning on my one day off... to ask about a customer?”

“No.” Raven winces. “Yes. But he said you knew her.”

“Called her by name,” Octavia confirms with a nod.

Clarke narrows her eyes. Murphy had been restocking a shelf when Lexa came in, she's pretty sure. She'd thought he wasn't paying attention, but he apparently overheard more than she thought. “What else did he say?” she asks. She's grinding her teeth together and she knows it, but she can't help it. She's agitated. Maybe DeeDee's isn't worth all of this after all.

“That you were pretending to be on a date to cover for her, then you asked her out on a real one and she rejected your ass.”

“Which means she's crazy,” Raven says quickly, “Because you've got a great ass.”

“A terrific ass,” Octavia agrees.

Closing her eyes, Clarke sips her coffee and scowls, trying to block out this whole conversation. But of course it doesn't work. Raven and Octavia are relentless, especially when it comes to Clarke's social life. Or, well, recent lack thereof.

“So who was it?” Octavia prods when the silence has stretched between them for too long. Clarke opens her eyes again, but says nothing. “Come on, Clarke. Murphy said you called her by name, but he didn't tell Bell what it was. Give us something.”

Clarke rolls her eyes at the puppy dog pout Octavia gives her and sips her coffee again. “Fine,” she says, exasperated, “But I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing it for DeeDee's.” When they nod in solemn understanding, Clarke exhales and frowns down at her coffee. “It was that hot girl from the club. Lexa.” Raven and Octavia gasp as one and Clarke can't help how her lips twitch in response. Sometimes she forgets how good they are at listening. It's been a while since she's had anything like this to tell them.

“She sounds like a bitch,” Octavia decides. “Using you and then shooting you down. Rude as fuck.”

“She wasn't,” Clarke defends, wondering why she feels like she needs to. “She didn't owe me anything for helping her out. That's Nice Guy thinking, O.”

Octavia wins and nods. “You're right. I take it back. She didn't owe you shit.”

“Word,” Raven agrees. “But still. Sucks for you, buddy.” She reaches out and gives Clarke's shoulder a consolatory pat, which Clarke smiles at her for before sighing and shaking her head.

“It's not a big deal,” she says. “And it definitely wasn't interesting enough to wake me up for.”

“Au contraire, Pierre.” Octavia reaches out and gives Clarke's cheek a poke. “I think it's very interesting. You haven't gone out on a date in, what, like a year?”

“Year and a half,” Raven corrects. “Almost two since she actually got laid.”

“Thanks so much for the reminder,” Clarke mutters.

“And yet,” Octavia continues as if she hadn't been interrupted, “You have now run into hot girl from the club twice, and you asked her out the second time. Would have probably asked her out the first time, too, if you hadn't thought she was banging that other girl. Am I right? Of course I am.” She nods to herself before Clarke can answer. She almost wants to say no just to be contrary, but since Octavia is actually right, she doesn't bother. “So there's something about this girl you're into enough to break your single-and-not-mingling streak.”

Clarke lifts her eyebrows. “Did you miss the part where I mentioned she is hot as fuck? Because honestly, I think that's reason enough.”

“I'm hot as hell and you've never tried to fuck me,” Raven reasons.

“Ditto,” Octavia says, almost smug as she boosts herself up onto Clarke's counter, heels knocking against the cabinet. “Try again, babe.”

Clarke is silent for a long stretch of time until finally she says, “Shut up,” and focuses on her coffee instead. There is something about Lexa, something Clarke finds intriguing, something she's willing to try to figure out. Except, well, both times she's run into her have been coincidences and they haven't exchanged numbers so what does it matter? The chances of her running into Lexa again are slim. That's over and done with. “Well, since you assholes got me up this early on a Saturday, I guess I'll have to stop procrastinating and start studying again.” She polishes off her coffee and tosses the cup with another heaved sigh. She really hates med school.

She must still be frowning because Octavia says, “Hey,” and reaches out, snagging her hand. She tugs Clarke in until she's standing between her thighs, then wraps her arms around her in a tight hug. Raven joins in, hugging her from behind.

“You tried,” Raven murmurs, squeezing. “That's a good thing, Clarke. Even if it didn't work out with hot Lexa, don't let that turn you off from trying again with the next sexy piece of ass you come across.”

“We want you to be happy,” Octavia agrees, kissing Clarke's cheek.

Clarke feels her eyes sting. This is why she loves these guys. Despite how pushy they can be, despite the fact that sometimes they're kind of assholes, she knows they love her. They were there for her when her dad died, there through her change in majors, there through the dark times that followed. She loves them so much. “God, you'd think I got dumped at the alter instead of just shot down,” she says with a shaky laugh. “I'm okay, guys.” Sniffing, she pulls back, Raven stepping aside so she can. “Thanks, though. Seriously. Even though you're still assholes for waking me up this early.”

“Anytime, babe,” Octavia says brightly.

“Seriously, Clarke. Anytime.”

They stick around for another two hours before leaving, but instead of jumping immediately into studying, Clarke gets dressed and goes for walk. She thinks maybe a loop around the part will clear her head.

//

“He's already real good on that thing.”

Lexa looks away from where Aden is rolling down the sidewalk on his new skateboard and focuses on her friend with a nod. Gustus smiles and Lexa offers the barest hint of her own smile in return. “Yes. He's very athletically inclined,” she agrees.

“Doesn't get it from me. Or his mother. Must have picked it up from you.”

The small smile fades and Lexa shakes her head, watching as Aden turns his board and rolls the other way. “He was little when I had to stop riding. I doubt he remembers.”

Gustus shrugs and slings an arm around Lexa's shoulders, squeezing in a gentle side hug. “Kid remembers his mother and she took off when he was three. He was six when he went to your last competition. He remembers, Lexa. Even if you would rather everyone forget.”

Lexa opens her mouth to respond, but before she can, they hear a shout from Aden and from someone else. Lexa's head snaps up in time to see Aden collide with someone else, which sends both of them sprawling. Even as Lexa jogs over, Aden is already on his feet, his fall broken by the superfluous amounts of safety gear Lexa had purchases with his board. He's helping up the girl he knocked over, apologizing, flushed with his embarrassment.

“It's okay,” the girl is saying, and it's her voice that tips Lexa off.

She stares at the back of her head a minute before saying slowly, “Clarke?”

Clarke turns, her eyes going wide. Her disbelief seems to match Lexa's. Then she laughs, a sound that isn't quite amused, but not altogether humorless either. “Just-Lexa,” she greets with a slow smile. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Yes,” Lexa says slowly. “Imagine that.”

Chapter Text

Clarke wouldn't say she's a particularly avid believer in things like fate. The idea of something being destined to happen no matter what with no way of preventing it kind of freaks her out, actually. Accepting that, believing in that, would mean that her dad was supposed to fall from the roof. It would mean that he was never supposed to make it out of surgery that day. It would mean accepting that every prayer and wish and desperate plea she'd sent to the universe was pointless because nothing could have been changed.

So no, Clarke didn't believe in fate.

But she was fairly certain that sometimes, God or the universe or whatever the hell is out there could be pretty hellbent on making sure certain things did happen. Not everything, but some things. And it seems that Clarke's thing is this girl. Is Lexa. Three times, Lexa has been put into Clarke's path. That's a hell of a lot of coincidental meetings in a pretty big city.

(“Don't flip off the universe when they're trying to do you a solid, kiddo,” her father had told her once. “Sometimes we've gotta keep our eyes open and see what it's trying to tell us. Otherwise we miss out.” He'd winked and ruffled her hair. Clarke, angry and sullen and all of thirteen, had rolled her eyes and shoved his hand away. But she'd never forgotten.

If you blink, if you look away, those things can be gone in an instant. Nothing lasts forever.

She'd learned that the hard way.)

So Clarke knows that she can't let Lexa walk away this time, and she knows she can't walk away either. There is something here, something she needs to get a grasp on so that she can understand what the hell it is. If this moment passes, it's possible there won't be another opportunity like it. Chances aren't given infinitely.

She just has to convince Lexa of the same thing.

“You know each other?” It's the boy from before, the one Clarke had nearly forgotten about, and she turns her head to look at him even as he looks with some surprise at Lexa.

“Yeah,” Clarke says.

“No,” Lexa says at the same time. When both Clarke and the boy look at her, Clarke with her eyebrows lifting, she can all but hear Lexa's teeth gritting together as she backtracks. “That is, we have met before, but-”

“Wait.” The boy's eyes light, the smile he gives starting there a moment before it curves his lips. “Did you say Clarke?” He looks over to where someone else has joined them, a large man with a kind smile and curious eyes. “Dad, this is Clarke.”

“Is she? Isn't that interesting.” And now there's amusement as he too looks to Lexa. Clarke is confused about the whole thing for a moment before he adds, “The one Anya says you're dating?” and it all makes sense.

Clarke laughs again, quietly, her eyes meeting Lexa's. The other girl still looks fairly composed, but there is a flush creeping into her cheeks and the tips of her ears are burning red. Clarke thinks it's pretty endearing actually, and kind of funny that Lexa keeps getting caught in her lie. And maybe it's possible for her to say something to help out, but she doesn't. These are Lexa's friends and the whole date thing is Lexa's lie. So she waits.

“We went on a date, Gustus,” Lexa clarifies. Her voice is calm and steady, but her eyes are anything but. They are filled with a kind of anxious irritation that Clarke notices only because she's looking for that kind of reaction. They're more green than blue, she notes, pleased that the sunlight gives her Lexa in more vivid detail than a dim club or a candle store's florescent bulbs ever could. They're beautiful. Oceans vast, forest deep. She's beautiful, and Clarke's fingers itch for a paintbrush for the second time since meeting her. She inhales slowly, trying to keep her breathing steady.

She hasn't felt like this in a long time. Like she'll lose her grasp on something important if she doesn't get it onto canvas. It's an old feeling, familiar, but strangely new when attached to a person like this.

She sees Lexa. And she hasn't seen anyone in a long time.

“It was a nice date though,” Clarke offers before she can bite her tongue. Three sets of eyes swivel to her, but she keeps hers on Lexa's as her smile grows a fraction. “I've been waiting for this one to hit me up again.” She looks to the boy and the man called Gustus. “I think she's shy.”

Gustus laughs and claps a massive hand on Lexa's shoulder. “She's a busy girl, our Lexa. But I'm sure she's not dumb enough not to call. Clarke, was it?” He holds out that same massive hand, which Clarke shakes. She is surprised by how gentle he is. “I'm Gustus Rivers. This idiot who ran you down is my son, Aden.” And that massive hand shifts again, ruffling the boy's blonde hair with affection that belies his words.

Aden, helmet tucked under one arm, reaches out and shakes Clarke's hand as well. He seems a little more reserved than his father, though his small smile is still in place when he says, “Nice to meet you.”

“Same, Aden.” She pulls her hand back and tucks both into the back pockets of her jeans, wincing slightly because her ass is a little sore from the fall.

Lexa must notice because she takes a half step forward, brow knitting. “Are you alright, Clarke?” she asks and Clarke feels something move through her at the sound of her name. She likes the way it sounds when Lexa says it. And man, she must be really hard up if she's drooling over just the sound of her name.

“I'm fine. Really,” she adds, because Lexa looks somewhat doubtful.

“Probably a little bruised because of this numbskull.” This comes from Gustus, who swats the back of his son's head. Aden rolls his eyes. “We were actually about to head out to get some lunch. We'd love for you to come along. Our way of apologizing for knocking you down.”

“Oh.” The offer is kind and unexpected and her almost immediate desire is to say yes. But the last time Clarke had seen Lexa, she'd told Clarke flat out that she didn't date. She didn't want to step on any toes, or intrude on Lexa's time with these two. “Thank you, but-”

“Clarke.” She pauses, looking towards Lexa. Lexa inclines her head, a somewhat regal gesture, something Clarke is beginning to realize is a natural state of being for her. “Please join us. We would enjoy your company.”

“Especially Lexa,” Aden mumbles to his father, and Clarke grins when she hears it, laughing a little when Lexa sends him a withering look. She should say no. She has a lot to do, a lot of work to complete, but... Well. Maybe a little of old Clarke lingered after that night in the club because she feels the impulse building and she doesn't want to fight it. She wants to do something for different for once, something that doesn't involve classes or applications for internships or homework stacked in piles. Something that she wants for just her.

(Something not for her mother, her mind whispers.)

She meets Lexa's eyes, searching them for a genuine desire to have her tag along. Lexa looks back at her and her gaze is unwavering. Clarke finally nods.

“Okay. Sounds fun.”

“Great.” Gustus' voice cuts through the moment and both Clarke and Lexa look away. This time it's Clarke who's feeling just a little embarrassed when Gustus grins at them and Aden smirks like he thinks they're being idiots.

Lexa takes the helmet from under Aden's arm and plops it back onto his head, where it slides down over his eyes. “Safety first,” she says, lifting her eyebrows at him when he shoves it back up and scowls before he buckles the chin strap. “Lead the way. And try not to run over anyone else. We can only fit so many people at our lunch table.”

“Shut up,” Aden says, dropping his board back to the ground. It must be a normal exchange because Lexa only smiles as the boy starts rolling along ahead of them. It's the first genuine smile Clarke has seen her wear, a smile that is without the embarrassment of their second meeting or the slight, drunken crookedness of their first. It's soft and affectionate and Clarke stares. She's... fucking beautiful. It's really unfair.

As if sensing her appraisal, Lexa turns her head and Clarke doesn't bother trying to pretend she wasn't looking. She only smiles in response, and for a moment, Lexa's smile is for her instead.

Then Gustus calls for them to hurry up and they both look forward again, Lexa calling out for Aden and telling him not to roll into the road. Clarke watches her jog forward to catch up with the boy, giving his shoulder a light shove as she explains something about balance, something Aden is clearly still working on since he stumbles off the board with the push. Clarke grins at them, wondering how often people get to see Lexa like this. Clarke seems to be good at catching her in private moments. This Lexa and the Lexa at the mall seem very different from the Lexa at Club Trigeda. She likes it.

“Lexa's parents were Aden's godparents,” Gustus says from beside her and Clarke looks back at him. She hears the were there and it's a shock to the system, that familiar change in tense, that verbal reminder of something – someone – who no longer was. She remembers vividly when people started referring to her father like that, remembers the exact moment it starting slipping into her own speech. Were is a simple word, but it means something Clarke understands instantly. Something Gustus confirms a moment later when he adds a quiet, “They died a handful of years back.”

“I'm sorry,” Clarke says immediately, and there must be something in her tone that betrays her because Gustus gives her a look. She doesn't meet his eyes, but stares ahead at Aden and Lexa. “It's nice that she hangs out with him.”

Gustus is quiet another moment and then shrugs his shoulders, looking towards the pair as well. “She's like his big sister. He admires her, and... well, to be honest, she needed him after they passed. More than she needed me. She has a lot of responsibility, our Lexa. A lot of weight on her shoulders. Sometimes she forgets to shrug it off and have a life. She's pretty tough, but...”

Ahead of them, Aden falls and Lexa bends down to talk to him before pulling him to his feet, motioning for him to try again. Gustus sighs. “There's soft under the hard.”

Clarke laughs a little because she can understand that. She's been going through that same shit the last few years. Too much going on. Life moving around her, too fast for her to catch. “Is this the part where you tell me not to break her heart or you'll break my kneecaps?” she asks and Gustus smiles again, lifting his broad shoulders.

“Just don't hurt her,” he says.

Clarke's smile fades and she nods, wondering if she'll even get the chance to be in a place where that's possible.

//

Lexa expects lunch to be awkward, but it isn't. Which she supposes she should have expected, as Clarke doesn't exactly strike her as the socially inept type. As she had been with Lexa at their previous meetings, Clarke is exceedingly charming. She answers Gustus' questions about herself without a fuss and Lexa struggles to act like it isn't all brand new information. They're first date questions, the kind you ask when you're getting to know someone, so she figures that she is supposed to already know all of this.

Like the fact that Clarke is in her second year at med school, or the fact that her mother is a doctor as well and she's wanted Clarke to be a doctor since she was little. The fact that she has an allergy to shellfish and that she doesn't have any pets because she barely has time to take care of herself, let alone another living creature. She works part time at the mall to help pay the bills (she flashes Lexa a smile when she mentions it). Her last name is Griffin. Last names are important things to know about people you're purportedly dating.

(She wonders if Clarke knows who she is, what her name is. Maybe she doesn't have a reality show like Paris Hilton, but being the sole heir of the Woods empire had gained her a certain level of notoriety after her parents died and every once in a while, another picture of her will appear in a magazine or on a news site. She wonders if she's getting close to her purposely because of it. She wonders if Clarke will turn out to be like everyone else in the end, in it only until she realizes Lexa won't give her money.

She wonders if Clarke's skin is as soft as it looks.)

Gustus and Aden leave when lunch is over, Gustus siting a sudden headache, but Lexa finds herself lingering with Clarke at the table. “Want to split a dessert?” Clarke asks, flashing her a smile, and Lexa feels an answering flutter in her belly. She finds herself nodding in agreement before she can think of anything to say and a few minutes later, there is a slice of cheesecake between them.

Lexa pokes her fork into it, swirling it through the strawberry drizzle as she watches Clarke across the table. “So. Medicine, right? That's a noble profession to enter into.” Clarke's expression flickers before she smiles and shrugs. It's a brief moment, just a flash of emotion really, but Lexa's studying her face so intently that she notices it immediately. Her body tilts forward, leaning closer as she debates pointing it out. “You don't seem very convinced, Clarke.”

Clarke pops a bite of cheesecake into her mouth and shrugs again. It doesn't seem that she will answer at first, but Lexa holds her silence and waits. The best strategy for getting a reply after a question is to hold the silence after until the other person either caves, or else changes the subject. Clarke caves. “Being a doctor wasn't my first choice,” she says slowly. Her eyes are on their shared plate, locked on the fork she's swirling through the bright red of the strawberry sauce. Lexa doesn't shift her gaze from Clarke's face.

“So what was?” she prompts.

“Art. I started school with a declared major in art.” Clarke glances up and shrugs. “Then something happened sophomore year and I couldn't bring myself to paint anymore, or draw, or... anything. I ended up switching to bio and...” She makes a vague hand gesture. “Here I am.” Lexa's frowning. There is a feeling in the pit of her stomach, an uncomfortable ache, and the smile Clarke offers her is sad. “My dad died,” Clarke says quietly, and the feeling in Lexa's stomach intensifies. It strikes her a moment later that if Clarke lost her father in her sophomore year of undergrad, then it was around five years ago that he'd died. It makes her ache.

Without thinking about it, she reaches across the table and covers Clarke's hand with her own. Clarke looks surprised, but after a moment, she turns her hand and their fingers curl together. “I lost my parents five years ago.” She startles herself with the admission. Lexa can count on one hand the number of times she's said those words out loud since it happened, and never to someone she barely knows. But Clarke squeezes her fingers and somehow it makes the clenching feeling in her stomach abate.

They sit like that for a few minutes, eyes and fingers locked, their shared losses like an extra presence between them. And for those few minutes, the sadness Lexa keeps locked away surfaces. She lets herself mourn with Clarke and it's... strangely cathartic.

They leave the restaurant together, and through some silent agreement, they end up in the park again. They aren't touching anymore and they don't speak about whatever had happened in the restaurant, which is fine with Lexa. She knows that she has to go. It might be Saturday, but she has work to see to. She just... wants a few more minutes. The companionable silence that stretches between them as they head in the direction of Lexa's car is nice. She feels lighter. That's nice too.

“This is me,” she says when they get to the parking lot and she waves towards her car, but Clarke doesn't look at it. She's watching Lexa. She looks back at her uncertainly, shifting from foot to foot as she searches for something else to say.

“Thanks for lunch,” Clarke murmurs before she can think of something, and then she's leaning up and Lexa's heart pounds because she thinks that Clarke is going to kiss her. Her eyes close in anticipation, lips parting just slightly. But Clarke's curved mouth lands on her cheek instead before she pulls back. Lexa blinks dazed eyes open again, staring at the other girl. Clarke stands there a moment and then waves, turning to head back to her apartment.

“Clarke.” Her name escapes before Lexa can bite it back and she moves toward her when Clarke turns to face her again. And maybe it's foolish. Lexa has been hurt in the past. Lexa has had people attempt to use her for what she has. But... she doesn't want to see Clarke walk away. She might not see her again if she does. “I've changed my mind,” she states with more confidence than she feels. “I think I might enjoy going on an actual date with you. If you're still interested in doing that, I mean.”

Clarke laughs and shakes her head, but before Lexa's heart can sink, she pulls out her phone and asks, “What's your number, just-Lexa?” They make plans for next Friday night before Clarke leaves.

Lexa realizes when she gets to the office that she was smiling the whole way there.

//

“I just can't fucking believe you ran into this girl again.”

“I know.”

“And she asked you out.”

“I know.”

“And you might actually get laid for the first time in two years.”

“You're pushing it, Rae.” Clarke tosses a package of socks at Raven's head, too busy shoving through a rack of clothes to be concerned when she ducks it. She pulls a dress, turns to the mirror, and presses it against herself to try and imagine it on her. It's simple and black, but it doesn't look anything like the one Raven and Octavia made her toss out a couple of weeks before. No, this one is... definitely sexy. “But is it too sexy?” she mumbles to herself, frowning at her reflection.

Raven moves to stand beside her, studying her reflection in the mirror. She tilts her head from one side to the other, then solves the matter by snatching the dress and tossing it into the cart of 'maybes' Clarke has collected. “No such thing as too sexy when you haven't gotten laid in two years,” she says, and Clarke can't help but agree. Not that she plans to hop into bed with Lexa on their first date, but she wants to open the other woman's mind up to the possibility.

… And, well, it never hurts to be prepared.

They move to the dressing room a few minutes later. Clarke models and discards dress after dress before she finally comes back to the black one she'd selected. It's simple, but on the right figure (and Clarke knows she has the right figure) it highlights certain assets that she definitely wants Lexa to notice. It leaves enough to the imagination to not be too trashy, but there's enough of a glimpse that she knows she'll get Lexa's interest and keep it.

When she steps out of her dressing room to model it, Raven wold whistles and gives her a slow clap. Grinning, she motions for Clarke to spin, eying the dress from all angles. “It definitely sends a message, Griff,” she says with a slow nod.

“And what message is that?” Clarke wonders.

“It says, 'I think you're super hot and I'd totally be down to fuck tonight if you wanna go there, but if not then that's cool too, I still look good'.”

Clarke wrinkles her nose, but she can't help but laugh. “This dress talks an awful lot,” she mumbles, running a hand down what small part of her thigh it covers while studying it again. She has to admit, Raven isn't wrong. And maybe that's kind of the vibe she's going for, which makes her feel kind of reckless and stupid. But like, in a good way. “Okay. I think this is the one.”

Raven fist pumps. “Now can we go grab some lunch? I'm fucking starved.”

“You and your stomach need to wait for me to find some shoes. And maybe a new bag.”

The words have Raven groaning. “Remind me why I got stuck with shopping duty instead of O,” she complains, even as she follows Clarke towards the back of the store where all the shoes wait.

“Because O is working and because you love me.”

“Fair enough.”

She ends up getting the dress, two pairs of shoes, and a new bag. As she watches the total amount of money she's about to spend climb, she thinks of Lexa and reminds herself the tears her credit card is about to shed are worth it.

//

Lexa shrugs the button down on and carefully pushes each button through its slot. She hopes she's dressed appropriately for this date. It' been a while and she's not quite sure she remembers how to do this sort of thing.

On top of her dresser, her phone starts buzzing again. It's the forth time in the last thirty minutes. Lexa huffs out a breath and finally snatches it up, pressing it between her shoulder and her ear as she holds a different shirt up, wondering if she should change. “What, Anya?” she snaps. “I told you I didn't want to be disturbed while I prepare for-”

“Lexa.”

Lexa pauses mid-chastisement. She's never heard Anya sound so... serious. A chill woks its way down her spine and she slowly hangs the shirt over the edge of the mirror before moving to sit on the edge of her bed. She feels cold and there's no feeling left in her hands. The silence stretches. Finally she asks, “What happened?”

She hears Anya take a deep breath, and there's a slight tremble to the sound that makes her back straighten. At her side, her free hand curls over the edge of the bed, gripping tight to her bedding. She remembers a call that started similarly to this from her uncle Titus over five years ago.

(“Lexa.” He'd breathed deep. “I thought I should call to tell you before you hear it on the news.”

“Hear what, Titus?” There was silence. Awful silence. Then...

“Lexa, your parents are dead.”

And her heart kept beating, but she was numb, numb, numb.)

“Just say it, Anya.” Lexa twists a loose thread in her quilt around and around the tip of her finger. She watches herself do it, watches the skin bunch and swell and turn red with the pressure. It starts to hurt and she can feel her pulse in her fingertip, proof that her heart is still beating. Faster, faster, waiting for Anya to say the words she's dreading.

“It's Gustus.”

//

Clarke waits for Lexa nearly a full hour after they're supposed to meet.

Lexa never shows.

Chapter Text

There wasn't a hospital to visit when her parents had died. They'd been gone on impact, barely anything left of them to scrape off the rocks and ship back home.

Hospitals are supposed to save people. That's what they do. It's why they exist. Her parents hadn't been given that chance, but Gustus has. Maybe that's why Lexa is able to cling to hope as she sits waiting for news of his condition, Anya on one side of her and Aden on the other. Lexa made certain it was clear from the beginning that she would pay for the best treatment available to him. The money doesn't matter. All that matters is getting him better.

It's a fast forward morning and the blurs have color today. Nurses in a rainbow of scrubs, doctors in surgical blue, patients streaked in vivid red. But there is also white, so much white. Blankets and walls and swirling doctor coats. Lexa sits still and focuses on breathing, in and out in and out. It makes her dizzy, all that white.

“Did you tell Clarke?”

The words register dimly and Lexa's blinks the world back into focus, willing away the rushing sound in her ears as she tilts her head toward Anya. Her brows pinch together. “What?” She can't remember what Anya's question is. Everything feels fuzzy and distant, like she's looking at it through binoculars that aren't quiet focused.

Anya looks back at her in return for a solid minute before sighing and shaking her head. There is a look of frustration on her face, but Lexa can feel the worry beneath the surface. Worry for Gustus. Worry for Aden. And maybe there's worry for Lexa too. “Aden, why don't you go down the hall to the vending machine and grab us all some Cokes?” Anya lifts her butt up off her chair and digs into her back pocket for some cash. She doesn't even look at the amount as she thrusts it across Lexa's lap to him. Aden nods and stands slowly before wandering away. “Lex, look at me.” When she does, Anya taps her fingers to her temple. “Where's your head at right now?” Lexa's shoulders jerk up in a half shrug. “You're freaking me out a little. Are you here? Are you with me?” Annoyed, Lexa meets her gaze and nods. “Good. You need to be here right now. Aden needs you here.”

Lexa takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, trying to steady herself. Anya is right. There isn't any time to fall apart here. It's just... Gustus was her mother's closest friend since college. He's practically like family and she doesn't know what she'll do if she loses him. Or what would happen with Aden. There's no family to take him. No one but his asshole grandparents on his mother's side, the ones who don't bother to acknowledge him at all since they never approved of his mother being with Gustus in the first place. And there's the mother too, somewhere, but no one knows where. It's a lot to think about, a lot to consider. Maybe too much. Lexa inhales again, exhales slowly. Nods. “I'm here,” she says.

Anya continues to study her. She'd seen Lexa check out after her parents' deaths, and knew better than most that she never fully came back. Finally she nods. “Good. Did you tell Clarke what happened?”

Lexa's lips press into a thin line. She shakes her head. “I didn't think of it after you called.” Her mind had gone completely blank, thoughts all focused on Gustus and Aden. “I'm sure it isn't a big deal.”

“You were supposed to be on a date with her, Woods. If you didn't call or even text to tell her what was happening, what do you think happened?” When Lexa doesn't answer, Anya shakes her head. “You're a goddamned moron.”

Lexa shakes her head. “There are more important things than my social life right now,” she says, and Anya doesn't bother to argue. She only shakes her head and stands up from her chair, folding her arms across her chest. Aden reappears a minute later with three Cokes, passing each of the women one before cracking his own. Instead of sipping, he just stares down at the bottle, watching it fizz and froth over his fingertips. With the world back in focus, Lexa feels her concern for him spike and she reaches out, drops a light hand on his shoulder, and squeezes. “Doing okay?” she asks him, and he shrugs, finally bringing the bottle to his lips.

Anya curses quietly and wanders down the hall.

“Lexa...” Aden glances over to her looking more grown up than she's ever seen him. “He was really sick.”

Her heart sinks. “I know.” She wonders if he understands what exactly happened to Gustus, if he understands what a brain aneurysm is. Does he know enough to understand the possibilities here? Does he know his father might die?

She wonders what it would have felt like, knowing she was never going to see her parents again. What would she have said to them? What would she have done? She likes to think she would have been forgiving towards her father, that she'd have let her mother hug her a little longer. That she'd have told them she loved them, even when she was angry with them.

(She'd have begged them to stay, begged them for more time. She'd have tried to defy the universe to keep them, if she'd known.)

“It's okay, kid,” Anya says, reappearing on Aden's other side. She sits and wraps an arm around his shoulder, squeezing him once. “It'll be okay.”

Lexa wants to tell Anya not to lie to him, those same lies everyone had told her when her parents died. The difference is that Lexa had been an adult. She'd known they were lies. But Aden... Aden would believe that they're telling him the truth.

But she can't bring herself to deny him the comfort. Or deny herself the hope of Anya being right.

Instead of speaking, Lexa turns away and focuses straight ahead, eyes on the doors she knows the doctors and nurses stand behind, hiding the emergencies from the waiting families outside of them. Saving lives, and losing them. She wonders how they do it. She wonders how Clarke does it. Is going to do it? Then she tries her damnedest to push Clarke from her mind again. Not the right kind of distraction.

She feels Anya shift to sit beside her again, feels something nudge the back of her hand. When she looks, Anya is holding her own phone out to her, eyebrows lifted. Lexa takes it cautiously from her (Anya with the quick fingers, Anya whose rebellious phase had included pickpocketing, Anya who'd snaked the phone out of her bag without her noticing) and glances down to read the display. It's a text conversation.

With Clarke.

Lexa's heart sinks as she reads.

Sent: This is Anya, Lexa's friend. She apologizes for missing your date. We had an emergency.

Received: Oh. Is everything okay? Is Lexa okay?

Sent: She's fine. Gustus is in the hospital. Looks bad.

Received: Shit, I hope he's okay... Does she need company or is it better to leave her alone?

Sent: Fulton County Hospital, third floor, waiting room 2

Received: Okay

“What the hell did you do?” Lexa hisses to Anya. The other woman only holds up her hands in a gesture of peace.

“I apologized for you, you inconsiderate asshole,” she says in return, prodding Lexa's side. “Besides, you're dating. Maybe having her hand to hold will keep you grounded. We need you here, Lex.”

Lexa isn't sure what to say. That she and Clarke aren't dating? That she doesn't need a hand to hold? That she is here, that she isn't going anywhere? She opens her mouth without any clue as to what words will come out, but it doesn't matter. A voice interrupts them before she can speak.

“Miss Woods?”

Lexa's head snaps up, her eyes focusing on the doctor now standing in front of them. Anya sits up straighter and Aden stares down into his Coke, as if avoiding eye contact will make it better, safer. She stares at this stranger, this man who Gustus's life depends on, and tries to read him. But like Lexa, he is a master at keeping his expression carefully neutral. “Tell us,” she demands, standing automatically to put herself on the same level as him. “Is he going to be okay?”

The doctor looks back at her a moment and tells them.

//

It really isn't any of her business. Clarke hardly knows Gustus and his son. She doesn't know Anya at all. She barely knows Lexa. She hates being in hospitals unless it's absolutely necessary for school, the scent of them a constant reminder of waiting to know her father's fate, the ticking of the clock on waiting room walls even worse. Clarke hates the blank, sterile canvas of them, the way that she can't find inspiration anywhere inside of their walls. Every time she steps inside of one, she can only think how much Jake Griffin would have hated dying in a place like it. A place without color or energy or beauty. A place where her own inspiration had died as well.

Hospitals never bring happy endings.

But despite all of this, Clarke finds herself walking into Fulton County, finds herself stepping into the elevator, finds herself following the signs to waiting room two. And there she finds Lexa, alone, sitting stiff on one of the many chairs. She is beautiful. She is the only color in this world of white. But the colors are not warm and vibrant today. They are shades of blue and gray and purple and green, dull colors, sad colors. Clarke knows even before she carefully lowers herself into the seat beside her exactly what Lexa is going to say. She reaches out and covers her hand carefully with her own, gently squeezing her fingers. They are stiff and clinging to the arm of the chair. Clarke carefully strokes across them until they loosen and release. Lexa turns her head slowly, as if seeing her for the first time.

“He's dead.”

Her words are clipped and hard, but Clarke knows there is pain. She knows there is a great sadness. Clarke had suffered loss and she could recognize it in Lexa, though she was sure there were plenty of others who wouldn't be able to see past what she presents. The cool, aloof expression she wears is so at odds with people's normal perception of grief that she doubts they would look any closer than that. They wouldn't see her white-knuckled grip on the chair. They wouldn't see they way her shoulders are held so stiff, squared to hold the weight of her sorrow. They wouldn't see the way her eyes can't seem to focus, but instead skip across the waiting room. Others wouldn't see because others don't know loss like Clarke does.

She wonders what words people offered Lexa when her parents died. Did they feed her the same lines people fed Clarke when her dad died? “I'm sorry for your loss.” “He's in a better place.” “He's not suffering anymore.” “He's still with you, Clarke.” She remembers them telling her to reach out if she needed anything, but it was always with that silent worry in their eyes, the hope that she wouldn't follow through, that she would keep her grief contained so that they wouldn't have to feel it. Every word they'd said had felt empty and completely void of any meaning. So Clarke doesn't say any of that.

Instead she reaches out and lays a hand on Lexa's cheek. Lexa startles, her eyes circling back to focus on Clarke as she smooths her fingertips along the curve of her clenched jaw and presses gently where she knows the tension would cause soreness. “It's bullshit,” she says quietly, her eyes steady on Lexa's. “It's absolute bullshit. He should be alive and he isn't. I'm sorry.” Lexa stares at her and Clarke looks back at her and says what she wishes someone had told her. “It's okay to be angry.”

The words seem to take a long minute to process. Lexa's gaze grows dark with her grief, a storm over open seas, clouds rolling over those ocean eyes until suddenly she pushes up from the chair and paces the empty waiting room with a yell. She kicks a chair and sends it flying. She punches the wall once, then twice, until her knuckles split and smear red across the whitewashed cinder blocks.

It is then that she turns back to Clarke and falls to her knees in front of her, dropping her head on her lap as the bitter tears escape in harsh, jagged sobs. Clarke strokes her fingers gently through her hair and lets her weep. And though they've only met a handful of times, though their meetings have been short and impersonal for the most part, Clarke feels like she knows this woman than she's ever known anyone else in her life. She understands Lexa. She sees her with a clarity that has eluded Clarke for a very long time. Something here, she thinks again, as she had in the park.

And she wonders if their connection is based the tangled threads of their respective grief.

Lexa eventually lifts her head and Clarke watches her swipe her palm over her damp cheeks, wiping away the evidence. She straightens slowly and slides back into the chair she'd previously occupied, injured hand cradled against her abdomen. She doesn't speak, so Clarke does, her eyes flickering around the waiting room. “Where are Anya and Aden?”

“Anya took Aden to my home,” she says slowly. “I thought perhaps it would be easier on him than returning to his. I stayed to...”

“To arrange things,” Clarke guesses when Lexa trails off and the other woman nods slowly, staring down at her hand like she's never seen it before, like she can't believe it is attached to her own arm. “That was a good idea. Anya going to stay with him until you get back?” Lexa nods again, a small frown tilting her lips.

“Anya will not be able to take him. Her job requires a lot of traveling. She doesn't even have a permanent address. It is likely I will end up having him live with me permanently.”

“No family to take him on?”

Lexa sends her a cool look. “I am his family.”

Clarke gives her a look right back. “You know what I mean, Lexa.”

Because she obviously does, Lexa shakes her head. “There's only Anya and I now. I travel too, but not as extensively. This will be complicated. Our lives will be very complicated from now on.” She turns her head abruptly, staring hard at Clarke. “You didn't have to come.”

“I know.”

“You hardly know any of us.”

“I know, Lexa.”

“So then why did you come?” Clarke only looks back at her until Lexa lets out a slow breath and looks down at her injured hand again. There is a minute of silence that stretches between them, and the silence is filled with a million other things that neither of them have the words to voice.

Clarke eventually reaches out and gently draws Lexa's hand up so she can study it. The skin is torn, but nothing appears to be broken or crushed. “I can fix this up for you in my car. You don't need to check in here.” Lexa nods and they both stand, leaving the hospital behind.

Clarke knows the smell won't leave her nose for days.

//

Lexa watches Clarke as she carefully cleans Lexa's knuckles, wiping away blood both dry and wet. Lexa barely winces at the sting of the antiseptic. It burns, it makes her hand throb, but at least she can feel... something. Something other than the emptiness that had struck as soon as the doctor had told them Gustus's fate. Something other than the insurmountable fury that had filled her so abruptly when Clarke gave her permission to feel it. She wonders how Clarke is somehow the fuse to everything she is feeling tonight. Then again, she is the one with the alcohol wipes.

“I'm sorry I didn't call you to tell you I wasn't going to make it,” she says, the words escaping abruptly. Lexa hadn't realized she was going to say them, but she doesn't try to take them back or explain them away. She lets the apology hang between them, watches Clarke's hands falter for a moment before she continues gently cleaning the wounds.

“I get it. Something like this can blank a person's mind, right? I'm not pissed about it, Lexa.” She laugh quietly, the sound without humor. “Well. Not anymore.” She glances up and meets Lexa's gaze, eyebrows lifting. “Maybe I should apologize for the nasty things I was thinking about you before Anya texted.”

Lexa's lips quirk slightly, but the smile doesn't last. She looks down instead at their joined hands as Clarke carefully applies gauze to each torn knuckle and then begins to wrap the hand. “I don't think you need to apologize for that. It seems a fair reaction.” She takes a deep breath as Clarke secures the bandage and then begins to repack her first aid kit, which she then tosses in the back seat. Her car is a mess. Lexa isn't sure how anyone could let their personal space get so messy, but she doesn't ask.

“Where's your car parked? I'll drive you over to it.”

“Oh.” Tracing the fingers of her good hand over the bandaged knuckles of the other, Lexa looks up. Shrugs. “Anya and Aden took my car back home. I didn't want them taking a cab back. I was just going to call a car service.”

Clarke shakes her head and turns forward, turning the key in the ignition. “I'll drive you. Where do you live?”

“Clarke, you really don't need to-”

“Lexa.” She turns and gives her a long look, which has Lexa falling silent. “Address?” Lexa gives it to her and watches her quietly as they pull out of the hospital parking lot and onto the road. It isn't a long drive, but Lexa is exhausted. The last thing she sees before she drifts to sleep against the passenger side door is Clarke.

(“Lexa,” Gustus whispers.

“Lexa.” Her mother's voice now.

“Lexa.” And her father.

Everyone she's lost, everyone she's loved, whispering things she can't make out. She doesn't understand what they're asking of her. She doesn't understand what they want.

Lexa, Lexa, Lexa...)

Chapter Text

The first funeral Clarke ever attended was her grandmother's. She was six and bored, trying to look sad about the death of a woman she'd hardly known at an age where death was not a concept she understood. Eventually her mother had taken her to play on the jungle gym outside of the church, watching her from a nearby bench as she ran around. Clarke had stopped once to wave and noticed her mother was crying, something she'd never seen her do before. So Clarke had gone to her, scrambled up onto the bench, and held her hand, uncharacteristically still.

“Are you sad because grammie went to heaven?”

“Yes I am.”

“Why? I thought heaven is good?”

“It is, but I'm going to miss her very much.”

“You can't visit?”

“No. No one can't visit heaven. People can only go when they get old and die.”

“And grammie can't come here anymore?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

It was the first time she'd started to understand that dead was permanent, and that it took people far away forever and ever. But luckily death was only for old people. Clarke had been very glad that neither of her parents were old. They'd be around a long, long time.

The next time Clarke attended a funeral, it was her father's.

At her his, Clarke had been absolutely destroyed. There were tears and there was blame. When Thelonius Jaha had apologized for her loss and shaken her hand, Clarke had yanked it away and shouted at him – and then at everyone – to stop saying shit like that.

“It's such bullshit. All you people have are empty words. I don't want those. I want my father!”

She'd shouted it, fists clenched, fury flooding her system. She must've looked wild, but her outburst had shocked everyone into silence. Her mom had tried to speak, but Clarke hadn't let her.

“Clarke-”

“Don't ‘Clarke’ me. Don't fucking ‘Clarke’ me! Fuck all of you!”

She’d locked herself in her room and her eyes had found the mural on the far wall that she and her dad had painted there when she was younger. An entire galaxy dusted with thousands of stars, purples and blues and greens swirling. A Galaxy of dreams, of exploration, of adventure.

(“Don't bother shooting for the moon, kiddo. Aim for those stars. There are billions of adventures to be had. You can accomplish more than just one dream in a lifetime.”

“How many?”

“All of them, Clarke. Every single one.”)

A few minutes later, she'd dug up a can of paint and a roller brush from the garage. She'd then spent the remainder of the wake staring at a freshly painted white wall, dizzy from paint fumes and aching with the tears that had never stopped burning her throat.

It turns out death doesn't always wait for people to grow old.

She hadn't known Gustus very well, but she feels that familiar ache as she watches them lower his casket into the ground. There aren't all that many people present. A smattering of close friends and small clumps of people who obviously weren’t close to him. People with just enough distance personally that they didn't stand too near and they didn’t shed many tears. Coworkers maybe, or maybe parents from Aden’s school. Clarke isn’t sure, but she knows how to tell these acquaintances apart from people like the small group she stands with. He didn't have family, she recalls. None besides Aden, and Lexa and Anya in an honorary sense.

She wonders if anyone else can tell the mourning apart from those who are there out of a sense of obligation. Neither of the women she is with is crying. Anya stands looking pissed off at the world, arms folded, eyes glaring at the casket like it had personally offended her. She keeps rolling her eyes at the priest as he speaks about God and deliverance and the Heaven that waited for Gustus. She’s wise enough, however, to be standing behind Aden so that he can't see her doing it.

Aden is crying, but silently. Clarke gives him points for the way he’s keeping his chin up, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Two wet streaks curve down over his cheeks, his neck, and soak into the collar of his dress shirt. The tie he wears is slightly crooked and she wonders if he'd insisted on tying it himself.

Gustus had probably taught him how.

And then there’s Lexa. Calm, collected Lexa with her unreadable sea storm eyes and carefully folded hands locked in front of her. Her expression betrays no trace of what she’s feeling. She’s beautiful and distant and not a single flicker gives her away. Even Clarke might've been fooled, but for the fact she can see the scabs on Lexa’s knuckles from where she'd split them on the wall several days before.

Lexa's reasons for that cool control become evident as they leave the cemetery. There are reporters waiting, heaps of them, all clicking cameras and shoving microphones and holding out recorders towards them as they push their way to the cars. Two men who'd been standing at the back during the service now lead the way, forcing the reporters back. Bodyguards, Clarke realizes. It never occurred to her that Lexa was well-known enough to have them.

“Miss, what's your name? How do you know Lexa Woods? Are you two together?”

Clarke’s eyes go wide and she looks nervously from the reporter to Lexa, who gives her head one subtle shake to tell Clarke not to speak before settling a hand at the small of her back and guiding her to the car just a bit faster. Clarke swallows hard and looks away from the reporters, ducking into the back of the limo as soon as the door is opened for them.

“I apologize,” Lexa says stiffly as soon as the four of them are closed inside the car. “I should’ve mentioned to you that this might happen. They tend to--”

“Enjoy tracking Lexa down most when she's hurting,” Anya cuts in with a bitter scowl. Lexa's lips press together and then she lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug, glancing out the window.

They are silent as they drive away from the cemetery and Clarke isn’t sure what to say, or if she should say anything at all. She isn’t even really sure why she’d come except that Lexa had asked when she’d dropped her off at home.

(It was a massive house past a massive gate, the name Woods spelled out in curling iron letters above the entrance. It was the first time she’d found out Lexa’s last name, the first time she’d put the pieces together on who she was. The first time she’d started to doubt her presence in this woman’s life.

She’d shaken Lexa gently awake and Lexa had stirred reluctantly, eyes blinking against the lights just outside the car. “Clarke?” she’d whispered, and Clarke had tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear without thinking.

“You’re home,” she’d said just as softly. “Go sleep, Lexa. Tomorrow’s soon enough for everything else.”

Lexa had nodded and reached for the door handle. When she’d looked at Clarke again, that solid wall of defense had been stripped away, making her look not unlike a lost child as the pain set back in. “I know it’s a lot to ask.” The words were still a whisper, as if Lexa had feared that talking any louder would make Clarke less inclined to listen. “But the funeral will be in a few days. Would you mind… would you go?”

Clarke had looked up at the gate, knowing it was best to back out now, to go while things were easy.

“Of course.”

Well, easy was boring anyway.)

She doesn’t talk. Instead she reaches out, her fingers curling carefully around Lexa’s. A thumb traces over scabbed knuckles, soothing the ache she knows would still burn there with the memory of her anger. For a while, Lexa doesn’t respond. She doesn’t twitch or stiffen, she doesn’t pull away or soften to the touch. She doesn’t look at Clarke or ask any questions, but continues to stare out the side window with carefully blank eyes.

But as they cross the bridge, her hand turns beneath Clarke’s so that their hands rest palm to palm.

And it’s enough.

//

It’s only a day later when Lexa hangs up her phone with hands that have gone cold. Almost immediately she pushes up from her desk, pacing her office for a moment before coming to a stop beside the windowed wall, staring out at the city.

Obtaining personal custody of Aden was proving to be harder than she’d initially thought it would, her lifestyle working against her in a way she hadn’t foreseen. And in a way, she gets it. She’s a busy person saddled with an empire, not to mention she’s only thirteen years older than Aden. More of a sister than a parental figure. But people like her raised kids all the time, right? Her parents had. She’d never gone without.

But a young, single, very busy woman trying to take custody of an orphaned preteen is a difficult sell, or so her lawyer says. And now...

It never ceases to amaze her what some people will do for money.

Not even a full week after his father’s death, Aden’s estranged mother had come out of the woodwork, no doubt drawn by the headlines about Gustus’ funeral and Lexa’s attendance there. She is the last person in the world Lexa wants around Aden, especially when he’s mourning. She’s never done a damned thing for him in his life, but a biological mother showing remorse for the years apart, wanting to reconnect with her son, claiming Gustus had purposefully kept them apart? It would play pretty in court.

“Oh, I’m struggling, Miss Woods, but I do want my son back. I tried for years, but Gus just wouldn’t hear it. Maybe you could help us out once I take him, give us something to keep us afloat.” And Lexa had shot back the only thing she could think of.

“You’ll get this boy back over my dead body. Not Gustus’s.”

Lexa clenches her jaw as the conversation replays in her head, arms folding tight across her body. She wants to believe that the woman has no case, that she can’t possibly take Aden back after ditching him for basically his entire life. But Lexa is also aware that the system can be screwed up and that if she isn’t careful, she could lose Aden to a woman who doesn't want him for anything but cash flow.

What can she do?

Her racing thoughts are disrupted when her office door suddenly swings open. She doesn’t turn around. There is only one person who dares to walk into her office without knocking and she doesn’t need to look to know it’s Anya standing there. “It’s been a long time since you made the gossip headlines, champ,” Anya says as she kicks the door shut and moves over to Lexa’s desk.

“Pardon?” Lexa does turn then, brows pinching together as Anya smirks at her and tosses a pile of magazines and newspapers on her desk. Lexa stares up from every cover, face stoic, a hand resting on the back of a pretty blonde. Clarke. Her stomach drops as she picks up the magazine on top, eyes tracing first over the image and then over the headline. Mystery Blonde Attends Funeral at Woods Mogul’s Side.

She opens too the article and skims it. The headline is followed by speculation about their relationship. Of course they rehash her very public fallout with her father, her equally public breakup, the loss of her horseback riding career, and finally, the death of her parents. Not to mention the rumors that she was supposed to be written out of her father’s will before his untimely death.

It’s a mess.

Lexa hisses out a breath and tosses it down again. She doesn’t need to look at the rest to know they’re pretty much all the same. “Let them gossip,” she mutters. “I have more important things to worry about than whether or not People Magazine thinks I’m going to marry--”

Lexa freezes mid-sentence and looks back at the pile of magazines, struck suddenly with a realization. Lexa’s parents raised a child despite their lifestyle because there had been two of them. Lexa had spent the majority of her time with her mother while her father worked, only occasionally needing care from a nanny when her mother had to travel with her father. Her lawyer had highlighted the fact that she was single as working against her in her attempts to gain custody of Aden.

“Anya,” she murmurs, tracing a finger over the glossy cover of Star. “I have… a really bad idea.”

Anya looks from her to the magazine and back again, eyebrows winging up. “Excuse me?”

“For Aden.”

“Lexa, you’re insane.”

“It wouldn’t have to be forever. It would just be until-”

“Remember what happened with Costia?”

Shoulders stiffening, Lexa looks up, shooting a glare at the other woman. “Don’t go there, Anya. This isn’t like that. I wouldn’t be going in blind.”

“Lex...”

“We need something here, Anya. We need an advantage. Miranda Sawyer called me.” Anya straightens abruptly at the sound of the name and Lexa nods, knowing that no one understands the fear and fury that had moved through her like Anya does. “She’s going to try and take him and funnel money from me and we can’t let that happen. Besides, what is there to lose?” She looks down at the images again, studying Clarke’s face in each picture.

“That bitch,” Anya mutters, and she steps closer to the desk, staring down at the pile of gossip she’d brought. “Man, I wouldn’t have brought all of this shit if I’d known it was going to incite this brand of crazy.”

“Not crazy. Strategic.”

“Crazy,” Anya reiterates. They share a stretch of silence before Lexa breaks it with a sigh, circling around her desk to stand beside Anya. She lets herself lean, just a little, grateful when Anya’s arm wraps around her shoulders and squeezes. It feels like support even though she is obviously hesitant about the whole thing. “Do you think she’ll agree to it?” she asks at last and Lexa shrugs. She’s trying not to think too hard about that. “Well, she must be special to you if you asked her to Gustus’s funeral, so maybe it was heading that way anyway.” Lexa doesn’t say anything and Anya waits a moment more before heaving a sigh. “Fine, don’t tell me shit.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” she murmurs softly. “We only just barely started seeing each other when all of this happened.” Hadn’t, in fact, seen each other at all. Lexa straightens up again and goes back to pacing. Maybe she is crazy. It’s a desperate, grasping idea because she knows she’s running out of time. And maybe Clarke will tell her she’s crazy too and all of this overthinking will be for nothing. Lexa wouldn’t blame her at all. But…

She has to try.

Steeling herself, Lexa digs her cellphone out of her back pocket and scrolls through her contacts until she finds Clarke’s name. For a minute, she simply stands there staring down at it, thumb tapping restlessly against the side of her phone. Then she selects the name and brings the phone to her ear, holding her breath as it rings. Once. Twice.

“Hey, Lexa.”

She breathes out slowly, turning to face her window so she can’t see Anya watching her. “Hello, Clarke,” she murmurs, closing her eyes. Her name is all sharp consonants making up a single syllable that somehow still manages to feel soft tripping off her tongue. She savors the sound of it, then internally chides herself for losing focus. Now isn’t the time to think about feelings or wants or I wish we could’s. But oh, she does wish. She wishes they could just--

“Are you alright?” Clarke’s voice cuts into her wandering thoughts and she opens her eyes again, focusing on the city lights beyond.

“Yes, I’m fine. Clarke, I was hoping that we could meet. I have something I’d like to discuss with you.”

There is a moment of silence and then, “Of course.”

When they’ve arranged a time and place, Lexa hangs up and runs a hand through her hair, exhaling shakily.

“Crazy,” Anya says from behind her and Lexa jolts, whirling to face her again. She’d forgotten that she was still there. “But if she goes for it, then...” Anya shrugs and turns toward the door again. Lexa watches her reach for the handle and then hesitate, so she waits for her next words. Sure enough, Anya speaks again, but the words aren’t what Lexa expects. “Be careful.”

And then she’s gone, leaving Lexa staring after her, wondering if maybe she is crazy after all.

//

The restaurant Lexa chose is unlike anything Clarke has ever been to before. It’s built out over a lake, the water sparkling below the expansive decks and wide windows, and it’s absolutely breathtaking. The high, vaulted ceilings are made of polished wood and everything seems to gleam and sparkle. Every surface, every window, every water glass is perfect.

It’s too cold to sit outside and so Clarke finds herself escorted to a small, secluded table tucked into the curve of a window with a prime view of the lake. She’s told that Lexa hasn’t arrived but she should feel free to order a drink while she waits. It’s expensive. At least, that’s her guess, as the menu displays no prices on any of the meals or wine bottles. It’s intimidating and Clarke is honestly a bit uncomfortable. She feels under-dressed in the simple red dress she’d purchased from JC Penney and she is almost certain everyone seated around her can tell she doesn’t belong.

Luckily there isn’t too long of a wait before Lexa is sliding in across from her with a quick apology. “We had an issue at one of our locations and I had to deal with it personally. You look lovely, Clarke.”

Clarke smiles and shakes her head, studying Lexa across the table. She looks tired, Clarke thinks. Or stressed. Maybe both. There are shadows beneath those ocean eyes and Clarke wants to reach out and trace her thumb over them, as if such a simple gesture could erase the marks. Despite the shadows, however, Lexa looks… wonderful. The suit is simple black, but obviously tailored to fit her long, lean frame. And despite the simplicity, she exudes an aura that makes her fit here. If Clarke painted her, she’d paint her on a throne. One made of swords, she muses as Lexa motions the waiter over. Not just ownership, not just power, but a fight for it. A defense of it.

She itches for a sketchpad she hasn’t carried in five years.

“How are you doing, Lexa?” she asks, both to distract herself and out of a genuine desire to know. “How’s Aden, and Anya?”

“We’re as good as can be expected,” Lexa replies with a small, sad smile. “Actually, Clarke, I wanted to discuss-”

The waiter returns before Lexa can complete her sentence, excusing himself as he holds out a bottle of wine to show them the label. Clarke looks at it, bewildered, but Lexa nods absently and the waiter takes that as a signal to pour. They then order their meals and he leaves again, Lexa staring down into her wine for a long minute. Nervous now, Clarke sips, complimenting the wine for lack of something better to say.

Lexa glances up and Clarke gives her a smile, wishing there’s something she could do to rid her eyes of this sadness. Only time can do that, she knows, but she still wishes she could do something. But all she can do is be here, is listen. She doesn’t think this counts as a date, not with everything going on in Lexa’s life, so there must be something she wants to discuss. Lexa, however, seems at a loss for what to say, so Clarke prompts her gently. “What’s on your mind, Lexa?”

“Aden.” The answer comes, soft and quick and certain. It’s an understandable answer and Clarke nods to encourage her to continue. “Custody has become more of a battle than I anticipated it being. His mother came back into the picture.”

Clarke narrows her eyes. “Didn’t you say she left him and Gustus when Aden was small?”

“Yes.” She nods slowly and Clarke grits her teeth, already despising this woman. What reason could she have for coming back now? It was a cruel thing to do to Aden, to Lexa, especially so soon after Gustus’s death. “She’s trying to claim her parental rights over Aden in order to receive money from me for his care.” Clarke’s eyes go wide. It’s a despicable thing, a disgusting thing, and she can’t believe anyone would use their child in that way. But then… Well, she’d googled Lexa and she knows how much money she’s worth. Or, well, roughly how much money she’s worth. Some people would do anything for even a fraction of what she has. But it’s still gross. Lexa must read her expression because she nods, turning her wine glass between her fingers. “Yes… Clarke, did you see any of the articles?”

Clarke blinks in confusion at the change in subject. “About Aden’s mom?”

“No. About us.”

“Us? You and me?” She shakes her head, absolutely baffled. “No, I haven’t seen anything like that.” She’s been buried under piles of work since the funeral, a lot of which she’d neglected in order to go to it. The idea that there would be articles about them at all is confusing, as there isn’t even really anything to write about. They aren’t dating. Well, maybe they would be, but circumstances haven’t lined up for them yet so they haven’t managed it so far. Lexa has more important things going on and Clarke gets that. Besides, they’re both busy people.

So what in the world have they been writing about?

Lexa studies her for a moment and then sighs, leaning down to reach into the bag she has resting beside her. She pulls out a magazine and passes it across to Clarke, who stares down at the image of herself and Lexa with shock. She must admit that the photographer was very gifted. The scene looks far more intimate than it actually had been, making them look like lovers more than friends. The headline supports that theory and Clarke shakes her head at the ridiculousness of it all, passing the magazine back. “I’m sorry they bother you with such trivial shit when you’ve lost someone you love,” she says on a sigh. “I promise I’m not going to discuss it, or you, with anyone.”

“But that’s the thing, Clarke. I want you to.”

It is the last thing Clarke expects to hear and she sits back further in her seat, blue eyes locked on green. “What do you mean?” She asks slowly, certain she’d heard wrong, or else misunderstood. She feels something building in her chest, a frantic kind of pressure that has her heart racing. It isn’t a pleasant feeling and Clarke wants Lexa to stop talking. She wants her to explain that Clarke isn’t correct in what she thinks Lexa is saying. Because surely someone like Lexa doesn’t want rumors like that spread about her. What would be the point?

“I want you to speak about it. Actually, Clarke, I’d like you to make this more than just speculation.”

She couldn’t mean that. There is no way Lexa possibly means that. Here had to be some sort of miscommunication, or else the stress and worry has Lexa thinking crazy thoughts. Clarke looks nervously around them and then back to the other woman, head shaking slowly.

“Lexa-”

“I want you to marry me.”

Chapter Text

She’d imagined giving her proposal – for lack of a better word – with far more finesse than she’d managed. But it was too late for all of that. The words hang between them, a delicate bridge supported only by the thin threads of their mostly fabricated relationship. Clarke owes her nothing and Lexa knows it. There is no obligation here, no love, hardly any personal bond at all.

Lexa sips her wine and lets her expression settle, smoothing out the worried crease in her brow until she knows it is deliberately blank. She projects an outward appearance of calm and hopes Clarke can’t tell that her heart is racing within the confines of her rib cage, that it’s beating so hard she can feel it there, vying for escape. She doesn’t want to pressure Clarke with the fact her agreement is paramount in what happens next with Lexa’s life. It isn’t fair to put that on her.

There were so many ways she’d pictured Clarke responding, from disbelief to accusations of insanity to anger. Lexa had prepared to answer every possible way she could imagine and thought that maybe… maybe she stands a chance of persuading her.

But she’d never expected the response she gets.

Clarke stares at her for a long minute. Then she tilts her head and says only, “Okay.”

Lexa blinks once, twice. Then she carefully sets down her wine glass and stares across the table at Clarke. She’d practiced so many different responses to all manner of imagined situations, and yet all she can manage is, “What?”

Clarke’s eyebrows shoot up. “I said okay,” she says, casually sipping her own wine now. Lexa’s mouth opens and closes, brows drawing together. She is all manner of confused and Clarke is just watching her struggle for words like it’s mildly interesting.

Then suddenly she’s laughing and shaking her head, setting her glass down again.

Lexa is only more confused.

“Didn’t expect to have your own joke turned back on you, did you?” Clarke says smugly, and it finally registers that of all the things Clarke could’ve believed, she’s chosen to believe that Lexa is joking.

Which is a funny thing to realize, as Lexa is pretty sure no one else in the world would ever accuse her of having a sense of humor.

The quiet settles between them when Lexa doesn’t join in on Clarke’s attempt at laughter and the sound is choked off in a kind of strangled noise. Her eyes go wide and now she’s the one floundering. Lexa remains quiet as Clarke looks around them and wonders what she’s looking for. Hidden cameras? Someone to jump out and say that she just got Punk’d?

“You can’t be serious,” Clarke says, and there’s almost a pleading note to her voice. There is panic in her eyes. They flit across the room again and Lexa feels her stomach drop at the anxious expression she wears. She didn’t mean to scare Clarke, but she needs help. She needs help and this is the only solution she can think of.

“I am.” Lexa allows herself one deep breath before leaning forward, her hand covering Clarke’s on the table. Clarke jerks and those blue eyes swing back to focus on her, but she doesn’t pull away or shove back from the table or splash wine in Lexa’s face, so she takes that as a good sign.

“I know it’s a rather extreme measure,” she says slowly. “And I know that what we’ve been doing has very much been for show, that we’ve hardly had a chance to even properly know each other, let alone go on a date.”

“Hardly had the chance? Lexa, I found out your last name by reading it off the gate above your fucking mansion. We haven’t gone on a date at all, and now you’re-” She laughs, but the sound is humorless. Lexa winces and nods in agreement.

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. But I’m not asking you to be a… a real wife or anything. I just need it to last long enough for me to get custody of Aden. He needs me. That woman… His mother would destroy him. She isn’t a good woman, Clarke.” And she’s pleading now, she can hear it. It isn’t the smooth, practiced speech she’d had in mind, but the desperation is clawing at her throat now, churning in her belly, and she can’t stand the thought of losing Aden.

She needs him too.

“Lexa...”

“Please, just listen.” Lexa squeezes the hand she’s still clutching, maybe a little tighter than she means to. “You told me that you didn’t choose medicine, and you seemed uncertain that it’s the path you should be on.”

Clarke frowns at her, and it’s obvious she’s confused by the path this conversation has taken. There’s a crease down the center of her forehead and her thumb is tapping restlessly against the tabletop. She doesn’t agree or disagree, but she doesn’t need to. Lexa remembers the conversation they’d had about it and she knows, better than anyone ever could, what it is to be trapped by the expectations of parents.

“So take, say… a year long sabbatical. If you want to return to med school after that, then I’ll pay for it. All of it, start to finish, even the loans you’ve already taken out for past years. And if you don’t, then I’ll see to it that you have support in whatever you want to do moving forward. But please, Clarke. Marry me. Help me take custody of Aden. I know this is crazy, but I need you. I need you.”

She can’t remember the last time she’d said those words. They burn her throat, her tongue, her lips, acidic and distasteful. They make her stomach twist. Lexa almost wishes she could swallow them back down. Not the offer in them, but the desperation, the pleading, the dependency.

There is nothing more distasteful to a Woods than having to lean on someone else for support.

(After Costia, after the loss of her career, after her parents’ deaths, she’d stood for herself. It was her way. It was the way it had to be.

“Don’t be afraid to use someone else’s shoulder, Lexa,” her mother used to say. “That’s why people have shoulders. To give the people they love somewhere to lean.”

But she was. She was so afraid.)

Clarke watches her quietly. She’s still frowning, but there is no longer outright refusal on her face. Lexa hardly dares to breathe as she looks right back at her, her fingers loosening from Clarke’s hand when she realizes how hard she’s holding it. She almost expects to find her fingerprints pressed into her flesh, but there’s nothing. Just the soft, warm expanse of smooth skin. Lexa stares at their hands and then looks up to Clarke. She’s still watching her, blue eyes flickering across her face as if she could find the answer within Lexa herself.

But she won’t find it there, Lexa knows. The answer to this question can only be found inside of Clarke. She tries not to think of the fact that Aden’s fate hangs in the balance, but of course she does. The thinly supported bridge between them sways, wavers, and he balances in the center where she can’t catch him if the tethers break.

“Okay,” Clarke says again, quiet and steady this time.

“Okay?” Lexa repeats uncertainly.

Clarke nods and sighs, pushing a hand through her hair. “I’ll do it.” She lifts her wine glass, toasts Lexa almost mockingly, then downs the rest of her wine like it’s water. “God help us both.”

And maybe it’s not the most romantic proposal acceptance ever, but Lexa supposes she got as good as she gave, so she only nods.

She wants to thank her, wants to pour out her relief into Clarke’s empty hands, wants to promise to be the best she can be for Clarke while she is hers (legally hers, she reminds herself, and nothing more). But she can’t. It all sticks in her chest, heavy and overwhelming So she doesn’t say any of that. Like Clarke, she lifts her glass in toast and then brings it to her lips, her sip far more moderate.

“Okay.”

//

“What the fuck, Clarke?”

Clarke steadfastly ignores Octavia, focusing instead on folding the shirt in her hands. She sets it down on her pile of clean laundry and selects the next article of clothing from her basket, wishing not for the first time that she'd kept this whole thing a secret just a little longer. It's a bit of a confusing mess and Clarke still isn't sure she'd made the right call, so having Octavia there telling her she's crazy really isn't helping.

“Clarke-”

“Yeah, I know,” she cuts in dryly as she shoots Octavia a look. “What the fuck. You said that already. Like ten times, in fact.”

She scoffs. “Seven tops. But seriously, this is crazy. Why is any of this your responsibility?”

“It isn't.” Clarke shrugs, sets her jeans neatly in the pile, and picks up something else. “It's not about that, O. It's about…” Clarke hesitates. She doesn't know how to explain it. Not her reasons for agreeing. Not her convoluted feelings for Lexa, someone she hardly knows. There is not one thing she feels like she can adequately communicate to Octavia to make the other girl think she's right. Clarke isn't even sure she's convinced herself of that yet.

She's saved by the sound of her front door opening and slamming shut again, a shout, uneven footsteps. Raven limps into the bedroom and tosses herself down on the bed, toppling the stack of clean clothes. Clarke doesn't even bother to swear. She just heaves a heavy sigh and starts to refold and restack. Raven smiles sheepishly and attempts to help.

“What'd I miss?” she asks as she twirls a pair of Clarke’s panties around her finger.

“Lexa proposed and Clarke said yes.”

Raven laughs and it's obvious she thinks it's a joke. Clarke feels a twist of discomfort and shoots Octavia a glare before snatching the underwear from Raven and returning to her laundry folding. When no one joins in, Raven’s laughter fades and she's left looking from one to the other with utter shock.

“What the fuck, Clarke?”

Octavia points at Raven with a nod and a satisfied smirk. “That's what I said.”

“Guys.” Clarke drops the sweater she’d been folding and tosses up her hands with her exasperation, eyes moving from one to the other. She loves them, she does, but they drive her crazy. Clarke is already overthinking her agreement with Lexa’s plan and she doesn’t need them questioning her sanity on top of it. “I know it’s weird. I know you think it’s crazy and I know it kind of is. But I agreed. I’m doing it. It’s done.”

“But why?” Octavia shakes her head, sitting down beside Raven on Clarke’s bed. She grabs one of her hands and Clarke lets her because she knows that they’re just worried, that they care. “There are better ways to handle having the hots for someone than marrying them on the first date. Normally people just take ‘em home and fuck ‘em.”

Clarke gives her a dry look. “Elegant, O.”

Raven shoves Octavia’s shoulder before reaching out to take Clarke’s other hand, rubbing it gently between her own. “We’re just worried about you, you know? Aren’t you afraid you’re being a little… impulsive?” she asks, her voice soft and serious in a way it rarely ever is. That more than anything cools Clarke’s temper because she knows that. She knows they love her, that they don’t want her to make a mistake that will hurt her in the end.

But in truth, Clarke doesn’t think she is. Yeah, maybe marriage is a big deal to some people, but Clarke always figured she’d never go down that road. This isn’t about thinking she loves someone and it isn’t about being horny and it isn’t about forever.

She wants to help Lexa and Aden. She wants them to be able to be together because it’s so damn obvious that’s what they both need. It won’t be easy, but Clarke hopes being with them will make it a little easier. And in addition to all of that, Lexa had offered her something she hadn’t even realized she craved.

A reprieve.

“I’m not scared,” Clarke says, gently squeezing the hands holding her own. “I’m…” She exhales quietly and closes her eyes, searching her heart for what it is exactly she’s been feeling since her dinner with Lexa. The emotion is hard to pinpoint, mixed in as it is with everything else. But when it comes down to it, when she reaches the bottom line, all she can really feel is…

“Relieved.” Clarke opens her eyes, glancing from one to the other as she draws in a shuddering breath. “I’m relieved. I need the time away to… regroup or whatever. I’m not happy where I am.” Ignoring her precariously piled laundry, Clarke sinks on the bed as well. Her friends press instantly to either side of her, her guardians and protectors, the people she loves and trusts most in the world. Octavia slides a hand through her hair and Raven rubs slow circles against the small of her back and Clarke feels tears sting her eyes.

She’d finally said it. She isn’t happy studying medicine.

She’s tired. She needs time to herself to figure things out and Lexa is giving her that. Time, space. And at the same time, a way back in for when and if she wants it. And it’s not her main reason for agreeing, it really isn’t, but it had weighed heavily in her decision.

There is silence between them for several long minutes, but it’s comfortable.

“So when’s the wedding?” Octavia finally asks, smiling against Clarke’s shoulder.

Clarke laughs a little and shakes her head. “No real wedding. We’ll just… do the appropriate paperwork and do the rest quietly at town hall and be done.”

“We’re not invited? Rude.”

“Oh man.” Raven sucks in a quick breath, lets it out in a snicker. “Your mom’s gonna kill you.”

She isn’t wrong and Clarke winces a bit, then shrugs. “She’ll get over it. I’m an adult. I can make my own choices.”

Octavia lifts her eyebrows and meets Raven’s eyes across Clarke’s body. Raven looks back at her with equal humor and smirks. “Yeah. Good luck with that argument.”

Again they aren’t wrong, but Clarke will cross that bridge when she comes to it. For now, she has to finish her laundry and figure out how to sublet her apartment and a million other things and her friends – as much as she loves them – are in her way.

When she tells them that, they convince her to go dress shopping instead because “It’s not every day you get married to a billionaire, Clarke,” (“A super hot billionaire,” is Raven’s addition) and she ends up getting dragged from her apartment to find something perfect to wear. And honestly, it’s a little annoying to have friends who are almost never wrong.

But it’s also pretty nice just to have them so Clarke doesn’t complain.

Much.

//

Lexa wakes nearly a month later from dreams that continue to follow her into consciousness. Her mother’s voice, Gustus’s, her father’s… they all whirl around her mind as she sits up and feels the stress of the last several weeks settle on her shoulders again. She rolls them, but she knows there is no shrugging off the heaviness of her responsibilities.

Nor is there any way to shake the stress that forms as a ball in the pit of her stomach, a twisted knot of worry as she remembers what the day has in store for her.

Today is her wedding day.

It isn’t that she is dreading being married to Clarke, because she isn’t. Clarke is smart and kind and… and so many things that Lexa doesn’t have the time to think about because she has to work. She has to go to court. She has to hold her dwindling family together and there isn’t time to be distracted, even if her distraction is… well. Going to be her wife within the next ten hours.

Lexa scrubs her hands over her face, reaching out towards her bedside table to finally switch off her alarm. Her morning routine is usually quite methodical, but today her movements are sluggish, delayed. There is nothing to do today, after all, except to marry the girl who is hopefully going to sway the court in her favor.

She wonders what will happen if her marriage to Clarke doesn’t help her case, but just as quickly dismisses the thought. If she starts to question herself, then she’ll never go through with it. If she doesn’t go through with it, then there’s no chance of it working at all.

(You always play it so safe, Lexa, her mother would have laughed. She would have stroked a hand down Lexa’s hair and Lexa would have frowned at her, not quite sure if she was insulted or not. There’s no reward without a risk.

And Lexa’s lips would twitch into a smile despite herself as she burrowed into her mother’s arms.

Life’s for living, buttercup, she would have whispered, and Lexa would have clung and taken comfort in her wisdom.

She misses her most on days when she feels lost.)

Pushing up from her bed at last, Lexa combs a hand through her tangled hair and wanders downstairs. Usually she would go through her entire morning routine and dress for the day before even venturing from her rooms, but it’s Saturday and it’s her wedding day and she’s just… so tired. She has hours yet to get ready and besides, she wants to make breakfast for herself and Aden and Anya.

By the time she makes it to the kitchen, however, it’s obvious someone is already up. The smell of bacon is permeating through the halls and Lexa’s stomach growls viciously for attention. It makes her pause to wonder if she’d remembered to have dinner last night, but she can’t recall either way and decides it doesn’t matter anyway since obviously she’s about to get breakfast now either way.

To her complete and utter shock, both Anya and Aden are awake and in the kitchen.

Well, she thinks as she shoots Anya a dry look, awake might be an overstatement. Her oldest and dearest friend is slumped on the kitchen table, face pressed into the crook of one arm while the other stretches out with fingers clutching desperately to an almost entirely full mug of coffee. She is, like Lexa, still in her sleep clothes, and her hair is impossibly messy. Lexa’s fairly sure she’d taken a sip of her coffee and then passed out again right there.

It’s Aden at the stove. He’s dressed and his hair is neatly combed, which is something Lexa notes approvingly. It had been hard in the first week or two after Gustus died to get him moving at all. The improvement can only be a good sign.

“Morning,” she tells him, hesitating only a moment before reaching out to run a hand affectionately over his mop of blonde hair.

He glances over at her with those sharp, solemn eyes and inclines his head in a small nod. But a hint of a smile curls his lips and Lexa counts that as an improvement too. “Morning, Lexa.” He turns his attention back to the food, expertly flipping eggs. “I’m making breakfast.”

“So I see.” She finds the coffee pot still blessedly half full and pours some for herself, watching Aden thoughtfully over the rim of her mug as she blows at the steam. “I didn’t know you could cook.”

“Sure.” He shrugged. “Dad… dad taught me. He said that all real men learn to cook because it isn’t fair to expect women to do everything for us.” He looks up at Lexa and for the first time in ages, she sees a hint of humor in his expression again. “And since you and Anya are useless except for cereal and toast, I figured I’d make your wedding breakfast.”

Lexa chokes on her coffee, the tips of her ears burning red as she coughs and sputters. “My wedding breakfast,” she repeats when she can breathe again. “Jesus, where do you think of these things?”

He only shrugs and scoops up the eggs and some bacon, passing them to Lexa before pointing at the bread warmer. “Toast is in there,” he says before he dumps some more eggs into the pan to continue his cooking.

Lexa finds the toast and shoves some onto her plate before setting it on the table across from Anya. She gives her chair a kick, watches with satisfaction as Anya’s head shoots up with a curse when her coffee splashes her hand. “Fuck’s sake, Lex,” she hisses.

Lexa sits down across from her with eyebrows raised, sipping her own coffee almost delicately. “Language, Anya,” she chastises. At the stove, Aden laughs softly, and Lexa feels the sound of it warm her heart. Anya softens too, just a bit, but gives him a narrow-eyed look anyway. For form’s sake.

“Kid’s heard worse,” she says with a shrug, gulping down coffee now. “And he already knows you’re a fucking bitch. Where’s my food?”

“It’s coming,” Aden murmurs. Then, “At least Lexa’s a patient bitch.”

Lexa rolls her eyes while Anya snorts out a laugh and scrubs her fingers over her eyes, trying hard to rid herself of the last dregs of her exhaustion. It never seems to go away completely nowadays. She’s just… always tired. Always dragging.

But it’ll be worth it. All the work, all the fighting, all the money spent, the lack of sleep, it’ll be so worth it. Because this? The people she counts as her family? They’re everything.

Victory, she thinks as Aden slides a plate in front of Anya, stands on the back of her sacrifice.

And she would sacrifice anything and everything for them.

//

Clarke wasn’t lying when she’d told Octavia and Raven that it wasn’t a big deal. They were going to have a small little thing at the courthouse because Lexa thinks it’s a good idea to have at least the semblance of a ceremony.

(“It may look rushed, yes,” she’d said. “But at least it will still look genuine. Like we want to get married and maybe we’ll have a bigger ceremony someday when things are calmer, but we’re settling for this for now since everything else is so chaotic.”

Clarke thinks she may be overthinking things, but she goes with it anyway.)

Despite her telling them not to bother, both girls end up tagging along to the courthouse. It feels weird to Clarke, having her two worlds meet in the middle like this. Like the courthouse is some sort of limbo and her wedding is somehow a link between alternate realities and she really isn’t prepared to handle this.

She’s wearing white and she hopes that doesn’t make things weird either. It isn’t a wedding dress, exactly. It’s just a simple column of white with a scooped neckline and a beaded belt cinched at the waist. But her friends has insisted on white (“We get that the whole ‘virginal bride’ ship sailed a long time ago, Clarke, but you can’t fuck with tradition”) and she’d caved because… Honestly because she wants to feel like a bride.

She glances around when she steps through the doors of the courthouse, spots Anya and Aden first where they stand just outside of a bathroom door. She starts walking towards them with Raven and Octavia just behind her, a smile curving her lips in automatic greeting.

And then Lexa steps out of the bathroom, adjusting her shirt sleeves, and Clarke’s breath catches.

She wears a white button-down tucked into high-waist black pants, the cuffs folded over the sleeves of her blazer. Her hair is done in an intricate set of braids, falling in waves and plaited tendrils down her back and over her shoulders. She’s beautiful, sexy, and she wants to just walk straight to her and grab her, but she knows she can’t.

Clarke must make some sound of admiration because suddenly Lexa looks up and Clarke is staring into those eyes.

Eyes she sees sometimes even in her dreams.

(She’s trying to get the color right, trying to map out in her mind exactly which pigments she would mix to paint Lexa’s eyes.

She can’t quite grasp it yet.)

“Clarke.” Lexa speaks softly, the sharp consonants of her name pronounced distinctly despite it being only a single syllable.

She’s looking at Clarke too, gaze sweeping down and up the length of her, fingers curling and uncurling once as she takes an unconscious step towards her.

Clarke moves to meet her and somehow their hands meet, their fingers curling together. Clarke can’t tear her eyes away. Lexa is just so beautiful. “Lexa, hi,” she murmurs, and if she’s a little breathless then she chalks it up to the rush they’d been in to make it here in time.

Lexa’s eyes flicker behind her and Clarke remembers with a sudden rush that she isn’t alone. Wincing, she turns and motions to her friends, naming them each in turn while Lexa inclines her head almost regally in greeting. “They wanted to tag along to watch,” she says. “I hope that’s okay with you.”

“Of course,” Lexa says. “They can sit with Anya and Aden while we...”

While we get married.

Clarke nearly laughs at that, nervously, uncertainly. It’s an absurd situation and almost everyone here must know that, but it goes unsaid between them all. They enter the room where their small ceremony is being held and get started.

There are vows and Clarke wonders if Lexa has written them, or at least specified what she’d wanted, because there is no mention at all of love in them. Only of promises, loyalties, partnership. None of it is techniclaly a lie to what they are and she finds herself smiling over how carefully worded each sentence is.

Lexa stands across from her and her lips twitch, as if she might also smile. Her hand squeezes Clarke’s and it’s warm and Clarke is just a little dizzy now and she’s getting married.

“Now kiss!” someone calls out when it’s over (Raven, Clarke is fairly sure) and the officiate smiles indulgently, nodding for them to go ahead.

They both freeze and Clarke can feel her pulse scramble and she is certain Lexa will make up some excuse, some reason, to turn down the idea. Perhaps she’ll make up a contagion or something, but Clarke is so sure she will--

But then suddenly there are soft hands sliding against her cheeks, cupping them to draw her in, draw her closer. There are thumbs tracing the lines of her jaw and those vast ocean eyes are suddenly so close and Clarke can’t breathe, she’s drowning, but she doesn’t want to surface.

She wants to be taken under.

She tilts closer in answer to the unspoken question in Lexa’s gaze, her own eyes closing as Lexa’s breaths feather across her mouth.

When Lexa kisses her, it is soft and sweet and warm. Clarke’s hands lift, fingers wrapping loosely around Lexa’s wrists, neither pushing nor pulling. Just holding, as if the simple touch could keep her anchored to reality.

Their marriage is fabricated – their entire relationship is based in lies – but this isn’t.

Lexa’s kiss is real and Clarke aches.

She wants, she wants, she wants...

Chapter Text

They’ve been keeping it quiet.

Though Lexa does want news of the marriage to spread eventually, she respects Clarke’s wishes to wait another two weeks so that she can get through her finals and figure out a way to tell her mother (both about the marriage and about taking a year off, and she claims the latter of the two is more terrifying). The fact Clarke had married her at all without first telling her mother baffles Lexa, but it isn’t her place to say.

She’s a bit afraid that her mother-in-law will dislike her purely because of this fact, but she supposes it doesn’t matter since the marriage is one of convenience in any case. Abigail Griffin doesn’t need to like Lexa. They won’t be family long enough to be close so it really shouldn’t make a difference.

So why the hell does Lexa feel so damned guilty?

Lexa sighs and tosses her pen down on her desk, scrubbing her hands over her face.

She can’t stop thinking about her. About Clarke. Or more accurately, she can’t stop thinking about the situation they’ve put themselves in. They’d actually done it, they were legally married, and all for Lexa’s sake. Clarke is sacrificing a lot to help her and she feels so selfish for it, for asking it of her, for cornering Clarke into agreeing.

And it isn’t like their relationship had just been a friendshipbefore their marriage. They’d been inching toward something, something bigger than Lexa cares to think about, and one might think that such feelings would make this easier but they don’t. If anything, that lingering something between them only complicates the situation further.

Because Clarke is beautiful and smart and willing to put herself out there. She’s doing everything she possibly can to help Lexa and Aden despite the fact she barely knows them and it just isn’t fair, that they’d never had a chance to figure things out before it came to this. Acting on it now? It could only make things awkward. They can’t start something when they’re sharing a household. If even one thing goes wrong, the entire situation will be messier than it needs to be.

There are only complications they can’t afford if they go down that path. So they can’t.

(But Lexa thinks of their kiss and oh, she aches with a want she can’t handle.)

Lexa stands and paces the length of her back wall, staring through the windows at the streets below as she does so.

So many people, she thinks as she always does. So small beneath her, so distant. Her fingertips press lightly to the glass as she stills and watches them.

This was her father’s office once. Sometimes, when Lexa was small, her mother would bring her here at lunchtime so they could eat together as a family.

I don’t have time right now, Brooke. I’m very busy, her father would say, a hint of irritation in his voice that had made Lexa flinch away as a child. She’d stand at his windows and look down and pretend she couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel.

She’s only this age once, Peter, her mother would snap in return, her voice sharp and hushed. Tomorrow she’ll be another day older, then another and another, and before you know it, you’ll have missed it all. Lexa would turn her head in time to see her mother rest a hand on his arm, to see his expression flicker and soften, though he’d still be frowning.

Peter Woods was always frowning.

An hour, he’d finally agree, and the three of them would sit around his desk, only Brooke filling the silence between them as they ate the meal she’d picked up on the way to his office. She’d run a hand down Lexa’s hair and brag about something Lexa had done with a warm smile and a didn’t you, buttercup? And Lexa would nod while her father grumbled mandatory words of praise.

He’d loved her, she thinks now. But he’d never understood how to be with her. How to show her that he did.

Lexa won’t make that mistake with Aden.

Whatever had been before with Clarke, it has to take a backseat to what she’s doing for him. All of this, it’s to keep him safe, to give him a home with someone who loved him now that his home couldn’t be with Gustus.

She just… has to remember that.

Lexa is still standing there with her fingertips just barely pressed to the glass of her window when her office door suddenly slams open, so hard it rebounds off the wall. Lexa turns and lifts her eyebrows when she spots Clarke just in front of her outraged secretary, blue eyes spitting fire.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Woods, she wouldn’t wait-” the older woman starts to say, her hand wrapping around Clarke’s bicep as if she might attempt to drag her bodily from Lexa’s office.

Lexa lifts a hand and Claudette stills instantly, her own hands dropping to fold in front of herself.

“It’s alright, Claudette. This is Clarke, my-” She hesitates, flicks her eyes to Clarke and then back to her secretary again. “Wife. She is welcome in my office whenever I am not in a meeting.”

There’s a flash of surprise in Claudette’s eyes, but she doesn’t question it. She only dips her head and turns, heading back out towards her own desk. Lexa watches for a moment and then motions Clarke further inside, shutting the door softly behind her. She notes that there is a dent in her wall from where the door handle had smacked into it. She’d have to remember to install a stopper.

“I assure you that Claudette is very discrete and very loyal to me,” she says when she turns at last back towards a seething Clarke. “She won’t mention our marriage to anyone.”

“It doesn’t fucking matter, Lexa.” Clarke snaps the words and her venom stings, makes Lexa recoil a bit before rounding her desk to settle on her side of it. The distance between them feels necessary. Not because she fears Clarke might strike her or any such foolish thing. She just needs the space to compose herself, to keep from taking Clarke’s hands and pleading with her to just say what’s bothering her.

“It seemed to matter to you a great deal only yesterday,” she points out, reclining in her chair.

Rather than sitting, Clarke stalks towards the desk, digs in her bag, and whips out a stack of magazines. She slams them all down between them and Lexa’s heart sinks when she sees the headlines.

All of them talk about Lexa Woods’ secret engagement, her quick marriage, the private ceremony that had been held. There’s a somewhat grainy but nonetheless recognizable photograph of them kissing at the end of their vows, probably taken from a security feed.

Bastards.

“I told you I didn’t want this getting out yet, Lexa,” Clarke hisses, slamming her hands flat on the desk as she leans in close. “I can’t worry about this shit on top of everything else, not yet. My mom is going to fucking kill me.”

Lexa’s gaze whips up and she can’t control the angry heat that crawls up her neck and burns in her ears. The accusation makes her heart thud, unpleasant and thick.

“You think I did this?” She pushes up from her desk chair so fast that it rolls backwards into her wall of windows. “You honestly think I would go against your wishes and just… hand this over to the gossip rags?” She jabs a fingers at the magazines with obvious distaste, glaring back at Clarke. There is hurt smoldering alongside the temper now and she hopes Clarke can’t see it, that she doesn’t know how deeply she can affect Lexa already.

Clarke’s expression falters, the anger she’d come in with shifting with uncertainty.

“I don’t know what to think,” she admits, and Lexa watches as she deflates suddenly, sinking at last into Lexa’s guest chair as she presses her face into her hands. “This is already a mess and we’ve only been… it’s only been three days. I have finals coming up and I have to tell my mom all of this shit and now she’s going to see this and- fuck.”

Lexa’s own anger, her disbelief, the hurt she doesn’t want to admit to, they all fade into the background. Concern takes their place and Lexa slowly circles her desk again until she can sink onto the arm of the guest chair. She reaches out, careful and hesitant, until she can slide her hand across Clarke’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry this leaked, Clarke,” she murmurs, heart settling again.

“No, I’m sorry. For busting in here and tossing this at you. I’m just... a little overwhelmed.” Clarke sighs and leans sideways into Lexa, her forehead pressing into her waist. Her hand comes up and closes around Lexa’s free one, clutching to it like a lifeline.

Surprised by the intimacy of the gesture, Lexa freezes, then slowly lets her hand lift so that her fingers can comb through blonde hair. Clarke sighs against her hip and she takes that as a good sign, a sign that she’s doing something right, and scratches carefully over her scalp. She remembers kneeling at Clarke’s feet in a hospital waiting room, remembers how patient Clarke had been with her, and attempts to give that in return.

“It’s okay, Clarke,” she murmurs. And it is. She gets it. “But from now on, please keep in mind that I do try to stick to my word. I don’t make promises unless I intend to keep them.”

Clarke nods, fingers squeezing Lexa’s. “I know. Sorry.”

They sit like that for a long time, the silence stretching between them. Lexa doesn’t feel the need to fill it because it isn’t uncomfortable in the least and she doesn’t want to break this… whatever it is between them. This semblance of peace, this unspoken truce. She only moves when it gets to be too much, when she realizes there’s a yearning in her chest to reach out further.

She wants to hold Clarke in her arms and murmur reassurances and it’s too much.

It’s all too much.

So Lexa clears her throat and stands, carefully restacking the magazines that had been dumped across her desk’s surface. She collects them all and taps them into a neat pile, trying to ignore the fact she can feel Clarke’s eyes on her as she does it.

“Would you like me with you when you explain to your mother?” she asks softly. And really, it’s the last thing she wants to do, but it only seems fair. Lexa has no parents to answer to, no one to question her decision here, so really, it had been a very easy choice for her to make. It isn’t like that for Clarke.

For all she is an adult, one never really stops answering to living parents. And Clarke, like Lexa had been, is the daughter of someone who expects quite a lot from her. Who wants to see Clarke succeed in the same field she’s succeeding in.

A field Lexa knows Clarke doesn’t want to be in.

“Oh.” Clarke stands as well. She takes the magazines from Lexa and tucks them back into her bag, sighing just a little. “No, it’s cool. I’ll deal with it myself. Eventually.”

“Eventually?” Lexa turns to her, lips quirking into a small smile. “Sooner is better than later, Clarke. She’s going to see at least one of these articles.”

“I know.” Clarke shrugs and slings her bag over her shoulder, looking back up to Lexa as she steps back towards the door. “I’ll get to it. Thanks, Lexa. And sorry again. I fuck up a lot. You’ll learn that about me.”

“Marriage is a balance, Clarke. We have to learn the bad as well as the good in one another.”

“Yeah.” Clarke smiles and then rolls her eyes and Lexa wonders what’s going through her head. She won’t get answers today, it seems. Clarke is already reaching out to open the door again. “I’ll see you at home, Woods,” she jokes.

And then she’s gone.

Lexa stares after her and wonders if Clarke really sees her house as home or if she’d been joking, a kind of I Love Lucy type deal.

She hopes there was some truth to it.

//

Lexa’s home is a bit like a museum.

It’s large and well-decorated, everything perfect and probably very expensive. But it’s also really impersonal. The more Clarke explores, the more she believes that a hired decorator outfitted every room. Like her office, Lexa must have inherited this place from her parents. But unlike her office (which had seemed very Lexa, decorated to suit her), Clarke doesn’t think she’d changed anything here.

It isn’t surprising. It’s only Lexa and Aden and occasionally Anya living here. Which means, of course, that it had only really been Lexa alone up until a couple of weeks ago. What little staff Lexa has – her driver, the mother and son duo who take a crew through the house to clean it, the pair of sisters that do the gardening – are only present long enough to do what they’re hired to do before they go home again. Most of them are only present once a week, the driver only when Lexa calls for him.

It makes Clarke sad, thinking of Lexa alone in all of this. Wandering through the rooms that likely echo with memories of her parents. She wonders if Lexa doesn’t change anything because it reminds her of them or simply because she can’t be bothered. There are a lot of rooms, after all. And why change it when it’s already all done?

There is a somewhat smaller living space that seems more personal and Clarke likes that room the best. There’s a formal portrait of Lexa’s family hanging above the fireplace there. A man, tall and stoic, his broad shoulders squared, mouth framed by a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. His hair is dark and neatly combed. Lexa’s father. A woman, beautiful and smiling just slightly, her hair a riot of curls around a sharp-featured face, eyes a match for her daughter’s. Lexa’s mother.

And then there’s Lexa herself, just a child here, trapped somewhere between the ages of ten and twelve if Clarke had to guess. She’s small and thin and holds herself like her father, her back straight, hands folded behind her back. But her parents’ hands rest on her shoulders and there’s the smallest of smiles ticking up one corner of her lips. And her eyes, bright and glimmering and familiar, hold all the emotions she hasn’t learned to hide yet.

Clarke looks up at the portrait, smiling slightly at the child Lexa was before she lets herself take in the rest of the room. There’s a large TV hanging on one wall and Clarke can see gaming systems set up in the glass cabinet beneath it. Aden’s? Or is Lexa secretly a gamer?

The idea of it makes her laugh and she shakes her head.

No, definitely Aden’s.

The couch here actually looks like it’s been used before and there’s a blanket balled up to one side, left carelessly behind by whoever had been using it last. As she wanders, she finds more pictures, smaller and less formal.

Lexa and her parents on the deck of a yacht, Lexa with a captain’s hat on her head. She’s even younger than in the portrait, five or six maybe, and she’s smiling in the arms of her mother.

Anya and Lexa, arms around each other, Lexa dressed for graduation. She stands straight and perfect, just barely smiling while Anya smirks with obvious pride at the camera. She’s wearing Lexa’s graduation cap. It sits crooked atop a mass of hair that is, in this picture, dyed a bright blue.

There’s one of Gustus and Lexa’s parents, one of Lexa and Aden as a toddler, pictures of people Clarke doesn’t know.

She finds one of a teenage Lexa on horseback, dressed for what Clarke assumes is a formal competition. There’s a medal around her neck glinting gold against the blue of her jacket and she wears the biggest smile Clarke’s seen in any of the pictures so far. A grin, even, teeth showing and everything. Amazed and enamored, Clarke carefully lifts the picture, studying this younger Lexa.

She doesn’t even realize it makes her smile too.

“She was really good.”

“Fuck!” Clarke whirls, startled, to find Anya leaning against the doorjamb with a smirk tilting her lips. She lifts her eyebrows at Clarke before letting her gaze fall to the portrait in her hand. Clarke holds it a little tighter and looks down again.

“Yeah, I can see that. Gold medal and everything.”

“Yup.” Anya pushes up and moves closer to Clarke until she’s looking down at the picture as well. “She won a shit ton of medals actually. And ribbons. And trophies. Somewhere there’s a box of gold and blue.”

“She packed them all away?” Clarke’s brows knit as she studies Lexa’s smile again. “But why? She looks like she loved it.”

“She did.” The smirk is gone now, replaced by a scowl as Anya stares at the picture. Clarke watches her, uncertain. “And she was going places, you know? She was like a fucking horse whisperer or some shit. Did you know she was slated for the Olympics?”

Clarke feels the jolt of that surprise down to her toes. “No. That’s… that’s amazing. But why…?”

“Why’d she quit?” Anya huffs out a laugh and snatches the picture from Clarke, setting it carefully back on the shelf it had occupied moments before. “A lot of really shitty reasons. Really public reasons,” she adds, shooting Clarke a sharp look. “You married a billionaire heiress and you never bothered to google her?” She sounds disbelieving and Clarke’s spine snaps straight. She can feel the pricks of temper and tries to push it back down, but it’s hard.

“I figured Lexa would tell me anything she wanted me to know. I’m not going to go yanking all the skeletons from her closet.”

Anya’s eyebrows shoot up again and she studies Clarke another moment before barking out a laugh. “God, you’re a self-righteous bitch, aren’t you?” she asks, but there’s humor in her expression now. Clarke is mostly just confused, and maybe still a little annoyed. “I knew I was going to like you.”

“I’m not sure if I’m going to like you,” she mumbles, but this only seems to amuse Anya further.

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

Anya gives the picture one last look before offering Clarke a lazy salute and leaving the way she came. For the few days Clarke’s lived here, Anya never seems to stay in the same room as her for long.

Clarke rolls her eyes and moves to the couch, tugging the blanket up over her lap.

“Nice talking to you too,” she mumbles to nobody as she uses her well-earned study break to watch some mindless TV.

It takes all of fifteen minutes for her to fall asleep.

(She dreams of ocean eyes and a bright smile that’s only for her.)

//

Lexa jolts awake from a bad dream at just past two in the morning.

She lays quietly in her bed, legs tangled in her sheets, heart racing in her chest. It takes long minutes for her to steady herself again and even when she does, she can’t get herself back to sleep. She’s afraid that if she does, she’ll see Aden’s mother dragging him away again while Gustus looks on and she just can’t stand it.

She won’t fail Gustus like that, and she won’t fail Aden.

With a heavy sigh, Lexa untangles herself and pushes out of her bed. She tugs her Polis University hoodie on over her sleep tank and shorts, then quietly leaves her room.

This early morning expedition happens often enough that she knows her way without turning on any lights, wary of waking anyone else up. The house is big enough that their rooms aren’t necessarily close together, but Lexa keeps the lights off just in case. And okay, maybe that’s mostly for her own sake. The last thing she wants is for anyone to wake up and discover her creeping around her own house.

Lexa pads quietly down the stairs and heads toward the kitchen, thinking only of the tea she wants to make for herself.

When she collides with another body, she is more surprised than frightened, her eyes flying up as the space between them fills with a crash and quiet curses.

It’s Clarke. Clarke, who had been clutching a steaming mug of tea. A mug that is now on the floor, Lexa realizes, as the contents of it had splashed over Clarke’s hand when they’d run into one another and she’d dropped it.

“Jesus, Clarke,” she hisses, quickly nudging her back into the kitchen. They stumble over to the sink in the dark and Lexa pushes the faucet handle up, making sure the water is cold before she grabs Clarke’s hand and shoves it beneath it. She rinses away the tea and hopes the water will cool the burn of it on Clarke’s skin.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, staring at Clarke’s hand as she runs her thumb over the skin. “I didn’t realize you were down here. I’m not used to… I’m usually the only person awake around this time. How’s your hand? I think I have some burn ointment. I’ll go find it and we can-”

“Lexa.” Clarke’s voice is soft, but it’s effective. Lexa immediately stops talking, her eyes snapping up to look at her. The room is dark, lit only by the natural light filtering through the windows and the glowing numbers of the clock on the stove face. Clarke’s eyes are no more than shadows smudged into her pale face, but Lexa can feel them on her as she lifts her free hand and touches it carefully to Lexa’s forearm. “I’m okay. It’s okay now.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Lexa holds her hand beneath the cold water for another minute anyway and Clarke lets her, both of them silent. Finally she switches the faucet off again and reaches for a hand towel, gently patting Clarke’s skin dry. When she runs her thumb across it again, she doesn’t find any blisters or any particularly raw skin and Clarke makes no sound of pain.

She still can’t quite bring herself to release her hand though, holding it in the dark between them.

“What are you doing down here so late, Clarke?” she asks softly. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“Shouldn’t you?” she shoots back.

Lexa finds herself smiling faintly. Clarke seems to manage that quite a lot.

“Probably,” she murmurs in agreement. But, Like Clarke, she offers no explanation.

Lexa likes that their silences are never awkward or heavy. They share them comfortably, like there are words between them despite the fact neither speaks. Like there are things they can say to each other only with their silence. And maybe there are, Lexa thinks. Maybe there are words between them that they’ll never get to tell one another out loud for… oh, so many reasons.

“Lexa...”

She looks up from their joined hands to meet Clarke’s gaze again. “Yes, Clarke?”

And then Clarke is moving closer, stepping into Lexa’s personal space so that her breath catches in her lungs. She leans in and Lexa knows she should step back and away, that she should remind them both that they can’t do this, but her heart is hammering and her feet are frozen and she can only stare.

Clarke’s lips touch her cheek just as they had months ago, the first time Lexa had expected her to kiss her. They linger just a moment longer, pressed to the corner of Lexa’s lips. And rather than back off immediately, Clarke stays there in her space when they part. Her face is barely an inch from Lexa’s and all she wants is to gather Clarke against her and kiss her until neither of them can breathe.

Until she can drag her upstairs and tumble with her into bed and kiss her for the remainder of the night.

But Lexa doesn’t move and Clarke finally sighs, falling back a step.

“Thank you for your help,” she murmurs. “I’ll just… clean up that tea and head to bed.”

Lexa nods and stands still beside the sink as Clarke retrieves the mug and mops up the spilled tea. She washes her hands and looks to Lexa again. Lexa can feel her searching look and very deliberately doesn’t meet it.

“Goodnight, Lexa,” she murmurs.

And then she’s gone.

“Goodnight, Clarke,” she murmurs into the darkness. She doesn’t make her own tea, but instead wanders back up to bed a few minutes later.

When she sleeps, she sleeps without dreams.

Chapter Text

It’s funny what the universe can do sometimes. Not funny in a laugh-about-it way, but in a this-kind-of-sucks way, the peculiarities of its twists and turns unpredictable and, on occasion, unwanted.

For example, Clarke was never particularly close to her mother. They’d spent her early years coexisting on this sort of awkward plane where Clarke’s father had been the connecting thread that held them together. Clarke had been a daddy’s girl from her first word on and that had never changed, not even in her teenage years. Then he’d died. And it isn’t that Clarke wishes the universe had taken her mother instead because she doesn’t. She loves her mother and would never, ever wish that. It’s just that she wishes it hadn’t taken either of them and that Jake was still alive, that the three of them were all together again. A family.

(Give her a break, kiddo. She loves you, you know that, her father would say.)

Since his death, Abby had tried to overcompensate by raising her expectations for Clarke, by helping her make contacts within the medical field via galas and dinner parties she had no interest in attending. She was trying, desperately trying to connect to Clarke, but it’s hard. It’s hard without Jake there to act as mediator, but Clarke doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t call her mother out because it’s obvious that Abby is trying to hard to make her feel loved.

She doesn’t have the heart to tell her that she feels smothered, that she’d rather just be left alone.

Clarke wants Abby to just be how she was before so she can stop feeling guilty about that. She knows she’s all that her mother has now, but her focus feels too intense, too extreme, and the weight of it is heavy on Clarke’s shoulders. Not for the first time, she wishes that she wasn’t an only child so that she had someone to share all of this with. But there’s only her and Abby now and Clarke wishes they felt more like a family than an obligation.

She thinks about all of this as she sips the beer she’s allowed herself, waiting for her mother to join her for lunch.

She’d woken up to a single text from her mother, one that told her in no uncertain terms that she had heard. It had been brief, but there had been no room for debate. Thinking about it, Clarke drags her thumb across her lock screen to read it again. It’s still open on her window, as she had thought of nothing else since reading it the first time and she’s spent half the day worrying herself sick.

Received: Clarke. We need to talk. Lunch at 12, Romano’s.

Left without a choice, Clarke ventured out at eleven-thirty and now sits perusing a menu of fairly authentic Italian cuisine, though her stomach feels too twisted up to entertain the thought of food. Mostly she wishes she’d been able to come up with an excuse for refusing this lunch, but she knows that’s childish. It’s her mother, for Christ’s sake. She deserves an explanation. Well. Sort of an explanation. But Clarke doesn’t know how to talk to her mother, not like she had to her father, and without him as the buffer between them, she doesn’t know how this is going to go.

At the sound of her name, Clarke looks up and watches Abby Griffin slide into the booth across from her. Her mother watches her, but stays quiet as the waiter bustles over and takes their order, stays quiet until he brings her the iced tea she ordered. Even when he’s gone again, the silence stretches between them like a swirling, turbulent river and Clarke is too scared to be the first one to bridge it.

Across from her, Abby lifts her iced tea to her lips, sipping it as she watches Clarke over the rim. “Hello, Clarke. It’s me, your mother, in case you’ve forgotten.” Then suddenly she slams her cup down, rattling silverware and appetizer plates, her hands pressing flat to the table. Clarke jolts but otherwise doesn’t react. She just waits, watching as beer dribbles down the side of her glass where it had splashed over the side. “Because it really does feel like you don’t remember when the whole country seems to know you better than me. Imagine how embarrassed I was, pretending I knew what was going on with you while no less than ten patients – and I won’t even tell you how many damned nurses – shoved those magazines in my face.”

Clarke could point out that it’s the world, not just the country, as the Woods name is internationally known, but she doesn’t because she’s not fucking stupid.

“And all the while I’m thinking inside, since when is Clarke seeing anyone? Let alone in love with someone and getting married. I think maybe it’s just gossip the first time, but then I saw the pictures and...” Her voice breaks off and Clarke risks glancing up, then immediately wishes she hadn’t. Because there isn’t just anger there, but hurt, and whatever their differences, Clarke never meant to hurt her mother.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke says quickly. “It just sort of… happened.”

“No, Clarke. A car accident just sort of happens. Running into a celebrity on a street corner just sort of happens. Falling in love and getting married, however, doesn’t just sort of happen. And it especially doesn’t happen without telling your mother.”

“I’m sorry,” she says again, her voice pitched low. Reaching out, she slides her hand over one of her mother’s, her eyes intent on the ones looking back at her. “Really, mom. I’m sorry. I just… when it first started happening, I didn’t want to jinx it. It’s been a long time since I’ve been with someone.”

“Since Finn,” Abby supplies, but it sounds almost like a question, like she’s asking if there had been anyone else in her life that Clarke hadn’t shared. She squeezes her mother’s fingers and nods in agreement.

“Since Finn.” A small, crooked smile tilts her lips. “And we all know how that turned out.” It had ended when Clarke had kicked Finn-the-fucking-cheater’s ass, a less-than-amicable breakup. She’d been torn up about it for weeks, though she’d decided it had been more about a bruised ego than a bruised heart. “So when Lexa came along, I wanted to keep it to myself because, you know, what if it ended up sucking?”

Abby purses her lips. “And then you got married.”

“Right, well. That part really did just kind of happen,” Clarke rushes to clarify. “Lexa lost both of her parents.” She looks up when she says that, and when she doesn’t see any surprise in Abby’s eyes, she concludes that her mother is way more in touch with the outside world than Clarke is. “They died around the time dad did and I guess we just… we clicked, you know? We understand each other.” That part, at least, isn’t a lie.

She wishes none of it was a lie, but she can’t risk telling Abby the truth. Lexa had warned her that now the story was out, she’d likely be hounded by the media. Which meant, of course, paparazzi tailing her or even just someone recognizing her in a restaurant and snapping a picture, selling it to the highest bidder. And if someone overheard her telling her mother the real reason for this abrupt marriage, then the integrity of the whole thing would be called into question and the custody case would be compromised. Even Raven and Octavia aren’t really supposed to know, but since they’d heard all about her Misadventures in Dating Lexa Woods, they’d have been harder to convince that her marriage was real.

“Then her friend Gustus died recently,” Clarke pushes on. “And we both felt like, well, life’s too short to not do what makes us happy, right? So we… got married.”

“You got married without telling me… because life’s too short?” Abby repeats slowly. “Clarke, that’s just… it’s ridiculous.” She holds up a hand before Clarke can respond to that, shaking her head slightly. “But you are a grown woman capable of making your own mistakes. It’s certainly past the point where I can advise you against it. And I suppose I understand why you had to keep it quiet, Lexa being who she is.”

“Yes,” Clarke breathes, grasping with relief at the point she hadn’t even really thought of. “Exactly.”

“Mm. And while that doesn’t excuse you keeping secrets from your mother, I’d rather just...” She hesitates here and Clarke can see that she’s still irritated and hurt, not quite ready to accept the fact her daughter being married is real. “I want us to work at communicating more. You’re my daughter and I love you. I only want what’s best for you.”

The conversation is put on hold as their meals arrive. Clarke finds that her stomach has settled considerably. The whole thing is going far better than she had anticipated.

“So,” Abby says once the waiter disappears again. She picks up her fork and gives Clarke a small smile. It’s forced, but she’s trying. “Tell me about Lexa.”

And since it’s an obvious olive branch, she does. She tells her about how smart Lexa is, how kind. She tells her about her subtle sense of humor and how Clarke had discovered recently that she’s a card shark when it comes to games like rummy. She tells her how dedicated Lexa is, that she is generous and that her smile, though it can be rare, is the sweetest Clarke had ever seen. Abby listens quietly for the most part, occasionally interjecting with a question or a comment. The longer they talk, the more her temper seems to ebb.

By the time Clarke winds down, Abby is smiling just a little and the hardest edge of her anger has dulled.

“You seem to really love her,” she says, and Clarke fights hard to not look as shocked as she feels when the words register. Her entire system jolts, but maybe she has a career in acting because Abby doesn’t seem to notice. “I’m glad. It’s going to be hard, balancing marriage and med school. Lots of long, strange hours. But the more you love someone, the easier it is to get through. What?” she adds, because Clarke is staring at her now with her fork poised halfway to her mouth, frozen there as her stomach drops.

She’d been so caught up speaking about Lexa that she’d forgotten about this part of the conversation.

“Um… Actually, there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.”

//

It is half past midnight and Lexa is already curled into bed with a book when her phone buzzes, alerting her to the fact that someone is ringing the main gate. Eyebrows raised, she picks up the phone and opens to her camera app, surprised and confused when she sees who it is parked outside requesting entrance. She hits the release so that the gates will open before standing and heading for the stairs.

There’s a soft knock on the front door just as she flips on the lights in the foyer and Lexa disengages the security system before swinging it open. And there is a loose-limbed Clarke, supported on either side by her two friends from the wedding. When the door opens, her head lolls back, bleary eyes blinking for a moment when Lexa murmurs her name.

“Lexa,” she slurs in reply. And suddenly she’s lurching forward out of her friends’ grips and into Lexa’s chest, her arms winding around her neck. Lexa stumbles from the force of it, but she manages to catch her balance with her arms around Clarke’s waist to steady her. She feels her nestling into the curve of her throat and with Clarke wrapped around her like this, she is surrounded by the scent of alcohol and cigarette smoke.

“What the hell happened?” she demands, voice hard with barely suppressed anger as Clarke mumbles unintelligibly into her neck. “Clarke texted me four hours ago saying she was crashing at one of your places.”

“She was supposed to,” one of them agrees (Raven, Lexa thinks, if she’s remembering them correctly). “You know she spoke with her mom, right?” When Lexa nods, she goes on. “Well it didn’t go very well and she asked if we could grab drinks and then have like, a high school style slumber party. So we go out, but then she starts hitting the cheap stuff a little too hard and we were like, whoa, better stay sober because she’s gonna be a mess inside of an hour.”

“It’s really bad when we both stay sober,” Octavia agrees, worried eyes locked on Clarke. “We tried to cut her off a couple times, but she didn’t listen. The bartender eventually had to, so we grabbed her and took her back to my place. She hasn’t drunk like this in a long time so we figured she’d just pass out once we got there.” Octavia sighs and combs a hand through her hair, and the stress radiating off of both of them only makes Lexa more nervous.

“It went poorly with her mother?” she prompts uncertainly and the two girls exchange a look.

“That’s our guess. We couldn’t get any details out of her, but I’m gonna say she’s probably pissed about her quitting school.” Raven shrugs. “You ask me, they’ve got a lot of shit between them and they kind of needed a mother/daughter fight, but it hit her hard.”

“Anyway, so we got her to my apartment,” Octavia cuts in impatiently, “But she just kept going on about how she had to come home, she had to be in her own bed, she had to-” She pauses here, looking uncertainly to Raven as if she’s not quite sure how much of their friend’s business they should share. Raven shrugs.

“She wanted you,” she says, eyebrows lifting, the hint of a smirk curling her lips. Lexa can’t hide the surprise that fills her chest, though she hopes the way her heart starts to beat a little quicker isn’t as obvious. “Kept saying she wanted to see Lexa before she fell asleep, blah blah. So here we are, and now she’s your problem.” She bites her lip, seems to think for a minute, and then says, “Take care of her, okay?”

Lexa nods and after another moment’s hesitation, the pair say goodbye and tug the door shut, heading back to the car. Lexa stands there with her arms around Clarke, one hand lifting to stroke gently over her hair before she starts to ease her down into the nearest chair.

“No,” Clarke whines, her arms like vices around Lexa’s neck, but she gently grips her shoulders and presses her into the cushions with a gentle kiss to her forehead.

“Just for a minute, Clarke,” she tells her softly. “I have to turn off the lights and engage the security, okay?” Clarke groans, but her grip loosens and she sags back in the chair, giving Lexa room to pull away and do what she has to do. It doesn’t take long, but even so, Clarke is dozing by the time she gets back to the chair.

“Come on,” she murmurs, easing Clarke up again. She isn’t exactly dead weight, but her clumsy, shuffling steps are hardly helping and by the time they’re on the third stair, Lexa’s wishing that Raven and Octavia had stayed behind to help get her up to her bedroom. It takes another ten minutes to get to the top of the staircase and every muscle in Lexa’s body is cramping and Clarke is getting heavier and heavier in her grip and there’s no way they’ll make it to her room.

So Lexa drags her into her own room, which is far closer, dropping her with little grace onto the bed.

(It’s not exactly how she’d pictured getting Clarke into her bed in the past.)

“You’re a mess,” Lexa murmurs, her voice tinged with just a hint of worry as she unzips Clarke’s boots and tugs them from her feet. Clarke grumbles and turns, burrowing into the pillows. Rolling her eyes, Lexa slides a hand beneath her hip, adjusting her hand somewhat awkwardly until she can find the button of her jeans and undo it, then the zipper. When the action doesn’t make Clarke so much as stir, Lexa figures she’s well and truly out and they’d have to trade beds tonight. Which is fine, if a little inconvenient.

She tugs the jeans down Clarke’s legs, carefully looking away as she tosses them onto the nearest chair. It takes another two minutes to work the blankets out from beneath her very drunk wife, but eventually she manages to get them over her instead of under.

“Goodnight, Clarke,” Lexa murmurs, fingers brushing blonde hair from her brow before she turns towards the door. And a hand catches hers.

“Don’t go,” Clarke whispers, head turning so she can slit one eye open and look up at Lexa. “Please?”

“Clarke...”

“Stay with me,” Clarke pleads, tugging now, hand insistent on Lexa’s wrist. It wouldn’t be hard to break away, but one look into those damp blue eyes and she can’t.

(She wanted you. That’s what Raven had said. How was she supposed to leave her alone knowing that drunk Clarke had only wanted her presence?)

“Okay,” she murmurs, fingers brushing Clarke’s cheek. “Just for tonight.” Clinking off the light, she rounds the bed and slips beneath the covers on the other side. Almost immediately Clarke slides over until she’s pressed into her side, heavy head on Lexa’s pillow, nose pressed to the line of her jaw. Lexa hesitantly lets her arm fall across her waist and draws her close, fingers tracing soft shapes against the small of her back. “I’m here, Clarke,” she whispers into blonde hair. “You’re safe.”

Clarke sighs against her collarbone and shifts closer, her bare leg sliding in between Lexa’s as she does so. “Thank you,” she mumbles, her lips brushing across skin.

It only takes a couple of minutes for Clarke’s breathing to even out, but Lexa lays awake for much longer, guarding her against the shadows.

//

An alarm goes off and when Clarke manages to drag her eyes open and stare down at her watch, it’s only five-thirty in the morning. “Octavia, you fucking bitch,” she grumbles, voice muffled by the pillow she presses her face into.

“I’m afraid it’s not Octavia who is the bitch.”

Clarke’s eyes fly open and she turns her head, staring into green eyes that hold traces of amusement. It registers then that she must be in Lexa’s room, that she must’ve come home last night and somehow ended up here. She scrambles for scraps of memory, but she comes up blank and even the attempt makes her head hurt so instead she only groans and flops back down against the pillows. “I’m sorry for however I fucked up,” she says, voice still slightly slurred (though this time with sleep) as she closes her eyes again.

Lexa chuckles. “You’re fine, Clarke. But would you mind…? You’re laying on my arm.” And it’s then that Clarke feels the gentle tug of it beneath her waist. Groaning again, she shifts and Lexa tugs free with a thank you, sitting up beside her. The alarm is silenced and Clarke thanks the lord for it. “Go back to sleep, Clarke,” Lexa murmurs.

So she does.

When she wakes again several hours later, Lexa is gone. Work, Clarke realizes. She’d spent the night taking care of Clarke when she’d had work the next morning.

“Jesus, I’m a fucking idiot,” she grumbles to herself. She stands and finds her pants, decides to go change and shower and nurse her hangover with a very big mug of coffee.

And walking out of Lexa’s room, she runs smack into Aden.

“What are you doing home already?” she asks and he frowns at her, his face flushing as he looks up and away. Clarke remembers she isn’t wearing pants and winces, quickly tugging her jeans from last night up her legs.

“It’s, uh. It’s almost three. School’s, you know, over.”

“Oh.” Clarke winces when she sneaks a glance at her watch and see’s that he’s absolutely right. It is, in fact, that late in the day. Her eyes lift and he’s looking at her again, though his face is still a little red. “Sorry, I didn’t realize. Uh. This isn’t… this isn’t what it looks like.” She waves vaguely towards Lexa’s bedroom and winces again because, Jesus, that’s what people say when it’s exactly what it looks like and when did she become some fucking rom-com stereotype?

“Clarke, it’s fine. I’m almost thirteen, you know?” He shrugs, hitching his bag up further on his shoulder. “You guys are married so I know you like...” Clearly uncomfortable, he shifts from foot to foot and looks almost longingly in the direction of his room. Clarke can’t blame him.

“Okay, cool. Good talk. I’m gonna… go.”

“Cool, yeah. Me too.”

Aden gives a little wave and heads into his room, closing the door quietly behind him. Clarke stares after him for a moment and then turns in the opposite direction. She really needs that shower.

And maybe two cups of coffee.

//

By the time Lexa gets home, it’s past seven and dark. The house is quiet, but she can hear the vague murmur of the TV from the den and follows the sound. She finds Clarke there with a notebook in her lap, the coffee table covered in open textbooks. “How can you get anything done with Dance Moms playing in the background?” she asks, hesitating a moment before stepping into the room.

Clarke looks up from her notes and smiles, setting it aside as she makes room for Lexa on the couch. “Easy. Every time I get secondhand embarrassment from one of the crazy moms saying something dumb, I look down at my notes. Means I only actually watch about three minutes of the episode, but it works.”

Lexa laughs and settles onto the couch beside her, leaning forward slightly to see what Clarke’s been studying. There are several medical textbooks and she isn’t sure which Clarke had been working on. She nearly asks, but when she looks back up at her, Clarke is watching her intently. “What?” she asks uncertainly, rubbing her fingers at the corner of her mouth as if to rid it of some invisible mess.

“I just… I wanted to thank you, for taking care of me last night. I know I hog the blankets when I’m drunk, and that I maybe snore a little bit-”

“Like a chainsaw,” Lexa mumbles.

“-But you took care of me anyway and that means a lot. I’m sorry you had to, but I’m really thankful you did.” Lexa watches her as she bites her lip, clearly thinking something over. “I’m sober now,” she says slowly. “Like, stone cold. I don’t smell like a bar and I probably don’t taste like I licked an ashtray either, which is undoubtedly an improvement from the state I was in last night.”

“Yes.” Lexa tilts her head. “I didn’t realize you smoke.”

“I don’t. Usually. Only when I’m fucking tanked, which is… whatever. Anyway, where was I?”

“Sober, showered, teeth brushed,” she supplied.

“Right.” Clarke nods once. “Yeah, all of that. So just um. You know. Indulge me?” And reaching out, Clarke land a hand on Lexa’s cheek, then leans slowly in to brush their lips together. It’s barely there, a mere whisper of a kiss that has no business setting Lexa’s body on fire. It’s meant as a thank you, just a friendly gesture Lexa is sure.

But they’ve been tiptoeing around this for so long that even the small touch breaks her.

So Lexa curls her hand in the front of Clarke’s robe, fists the other in her hair, and takes them both under.

Chapter Text

She kisses Lexa impulsively, just to get it out of her system. That’s what she tells herself, at least. It’s a thank you, a gesture of affection and goodwill, nothing more. Because Lexa had taken care of her and Lexa knows her better than most people and Lexa is kind and surprisingly sweet and amazingly smart and… just so fucking hot.

She kisses Lexa because it’s been on her mind, but she doesn’t kiss Lexa with the intent of more. That much is true. She knows Lexa’s stance all too well and she plans to respect it. In a second, in just one second, she plans to sit back and smile and say goodnight.

Apparently Lexa doesn’t get the memo.

Because it’s Lexa who drags her in, drags her closer, and kisses her like Clarke has wanted to be kissed basically since meeting her. She kisses her hard and deep and hungry, like she’s punishing them both for crossing this line. Clarke doesn’t mind. She arches closer, hands curling into Lexa’s hair, her lips just as eager against the pressure of her. Lexa is warm and soft and surprisingly gentle with her hands despite the aggression of her mouth. They just barely skim over Clarke’s shoulders, down her arms, around her waist, and it’s a nice sentiment, but Clarke wants more.

It’s cliché and stupid and part of every terrible book or movie kissing scene ever, but she is sure she sees fireworks against the blackness of her eyelids, bursting colors that explode in celebration of this kiss. They blind her to everything but the rapid beat of her heart, the Lexa, Lexa, Lexa pounding in her veins, until Clarke is pushing back and Lexa is leaning into the arm of couch and Clarke is swinging a leg across her lap as the kiss delves deeper. She scratches her nails through Lexa’s hair, against her scalp, and moans quietly when Lexa’s hands tighten reflexively in response.

Every single one of Clarke’s reactions seems to elicit an equal response from Lexa. Clarke’s moan has Lexa tugging at the tie of her robe until she can get her hands beneath it and Clarke has never been so grateful for the fact that bras are not mandatory sleep apparel because there’s absolutely nothing beneath therobe but a sleep tank and some shorts.

Lexa’s hands fall on her thighs, run slowly up the soft curves of them before slipping beneath the tank top to press into the smooth dip of Clarke’s waist. Clarke’s hips rock down in response, rolling against Lexa’s lap until it’s her moaning and oh god, Clarke never wants this to end. She wants Lexa’s hands everywhere, wants to feel them on her breasts and digging into her back and curling in her hair. She wants to feel them against her thighs, wants to feel those long, clever fingers buried inside of her until she’s screaming, until she can’t remember her own goddamned name.

She wants the only thing in her head to be Lexa, and she wants to fill her too. She wants to hear Lexa curse and moan and call out her name like a prayer.

“You know, there are like, ten bedrooms in this house.”

Clarke’s head jerks up and she stares, panting now, at where Anya leans in the doorway with a wide smirk curving her lips. Dizzy and disoriented, Clarke looks from her to Lexa. And looking at Lexa, she wishes Anya would disappear again so that they can continue where they left off.

Because Jesus, Lexa is looking at her with pupils blown wide, the ocean green and blue of her irises barely a ring around them. Lexa’s hands had pulled away from her skin, but they’re kind of hovering between them now like she can’t quite pull completely away and Clarke wants to grab them and drag them back to her body. Her chest is heaving with her quick breaths and Clarke’s eyes drop to her neck and she thinks that if she presses her lips just there, she’ll feel just how fast Lexa’s pulse is racing. Would it match her own?

But Anya is still standing there smirking at them and when they stare at each other a beat too long, she snorts out a laugh and pushes off the doorjamb. “In fact, not only are there ten bedrooms,” she continues in that same dry voice, walking closer to them with her arms folded across her chest, “But between the two of you, you occupy two of them. Both with functioning locks. Both with perfectly good beds, I assume.”

Lexa seems to register her presence now. She blinks once, twice, then turns to stare at Anya with utter irritation written across her face. Clarke echoes the sentiment, but she shifts off of her lap when Lexa clears her throat and taps at the side of her leg. Huffing, Clarke falls back against the opposite arm of the couch and tosses an arm across her flushed face to disguise just how affected she is.

Her body is still thrumming with want and there’s absolutely nothing she can do about that right now.

She lowers her arm when she hears Lexa stand, watches her smooth down her wrinkled shirt. Lexa clears her throat and shoots Anya a scathing look before glancing almost nervously towards Clarke. The uneasy expression she wears is so endearing that Clarke wants to stand and gather Lexa in her arms and just hold her for a little bit, but something tells her it wouldn’t be welcomed right now.

The walls are going back up and she struggles not to be disappointed by that fact.

“I apologize for interrupting your studying,” Lexa tells her, and her voice is calm now despite the fact Clarke is certain her heart is still thudding. It has to be because Clarke’s certainly is. That doesn’t just go away, does it? She wish she could feel it beneath her hand, pounding in Lexa’s chest, racing with her want as they kiss and-

“It really wasn’t a problem,” she chokes out, ignoring Anya when she laughs again. Feeling awkward now, Clarke begins to gather her books and her notes together, aware of the heavy silence filling the space between them. Lexa hasn’t moved at all and Anya’s watching her with obvious amusement, eyebrows raised. Clarke decides she doesn’t like her after all. Debate over. This moment seals the deal.

Books locked in her arms, Clarke lets herself look to Lexa again, studying her impassive face for some signs of a see you upstairs or even an I don’t regret this. But Lexa doesn’t meet her eyes and her expression says nothing, same as her mouth. Silent, unchanging, passive.

Clarke sighs and tries not to be disappointed as she hugs her books tighter to her chest. (She fails. She is extremely disappointed.)

“Goodnight, Lexa,” she murmurs softly, looking at her for another moment before turning towards the doorway. She shoots Anya a glare as she passes her. “Anya.” she gives her a cool nod and then heads for the stairs.

She needs a long, cold shower, studying be damned.

//

The silence lasts once Clarke is out of the room, lasts as they listen to her footsteps fade into the hall, then climb the stairs.

Only then does Anya turn to her with a wide grin, arms dropping to her sides with a laugh. “Ooh, she does not like me,”she quips, circling around the couch until she can flop onto it.

“I don’t really like you right now either,” Lexa grumbles, staring in the direction Clarke had gone. She wants to follow her, but she knows she shouldn’t. Kissing her was a mistake. They’d had an understanding and Lexa had broken it, which is just… It’s very unlike her. But even as she tells herself that stopping was necessary, she can feel her body aching, pulsing, willing her to follow.

She doesn’t. Instead she sits back down onto the couch beside Anya, glaring at the TV as she turns it from Dance Moms to some action flick with a lot of cars and explosions.

“Well if you didn’t want to get interrupted, you should’ve moved all that upstairs.” Anya, completely unfazed, continues to flip through the channels when the action movie grows old. “What if Aden had walked in when you were like, knuckles deep in your wife? That would’ve been fucking weird. You could’ve scarred him for life.”

“We weren’t going to have sex on the goddamned couch.” Lexa’s… fairly sure they would have stopped.

Anya doesn’t seem as certain. She shoots Lexa a look, rolls her eyes, and returns her attention to the television. “Lex, I don’t think you had much of a choice in all that,” she tells her with a shrug. “That girl was all up on you. Listen, I’m all for you getting laid. It’s been a long time and she’s, you know, your wife and all. I get the two of you wanted to go slow because your relationship was still new and all when you decided to do this, but like… She’s living here. That’s the equivalent of at least twelve dates. You’re allowed to have sex. In fact, do us all a favor and let that girl fuck your brains out. Maybe you’ll lighten up a little.”

She punches Lexa’s shoulder a little harder than is strictly necessary. “But in the spirit of doing us all a favor, get fucked in your bed. Other people have to sit on this couch, you know?”

Lexa isn’t sure she really wants to be having this conversation with Anya. She doesn’t need to question her own rules further, doesn’t need to regret the fact this can’t happen any more than she already does. But Anya still thinks this whole thing is more real than it is and she doesn’t know how to tell her that it’s not. That she and Clarke hadn’t been dating at all, that they’d gone into this practically as strangers.

But in all the years Lexa’s known Anya, she’s never wanted to take her advice more.

“Your wisdom is appreciated,” she says, making sure her the dryness of her voice translates clearly all the sarcasm the words entail. Anya only smirks and sets the remote down after landing on an episode of Fixer Upper.

“You’ll miss it when I’m gone. Don’t deny it, Woods.”

Lexa glances over, studied Anya’s profile. “When are you leaving?”

“Soon, Woods. Real soon. Reality’s a bitch, but we’ve all gotta live in it eventually. Can’t stay in limbo forever.” She drapes an arm across Lexa’s shoulders and draws her in. Lexa lets her, settling into her side with a sigh. For all of Anya’s flaws, she’s still Lexa’s best friend, and she’s a good person underneath the surface. Several layers underneath, but it’s there and Lexa knows it better than most people. She’ll miss her when she leaves, as she always does. Just as she’ll welcome her home when she returns.

They’re halfway through a house rebuild when Aden appears and asks what they’re watching. He’s quiet, watching the television screen rather than looking at them, but Lexa knows him. She sees the stiffness of his shoulders and the way his fingers are curled into fists at his sides. He needs company. He needs family.

“Anya’s watching some girly house-building show,” she says with a deliberate smirk in Anya’s direction. “Who knew she was such a sap for wholesome christian entertainment.”

“Listen, the people might be cheesy as fuck, but the house transformations are sick, okay?”

“Language,” Lexa sighs, but out of the corner of her eye, she sees it’s working. Aden is watching them now, smiling a little, his shoulders relaxing as he takes a few steps toward them. Lexa slides wordlessly over, leaving a space between herself and Anya. She keeps her eyes on the television, lets him choose for himself. And sure enough, he slides onto the cushion between Lexa and Anya, legs curling up to his chest so that he can rest his chin atop them.

“This is really girly, Anya,” he says after a few minutes.

“Hey. Whose side are you on, you runt?” Anya reaches over and jabs him in the side.

Lexa wraps an arm around his shoulder, draws him into a side hug before releasing him again. “Mine, of course. We don’t follow age before beauty rules in my house. We skip straight to the beauty.”

“Wouldn’t that mean I was on my own side?” Aden asks, and his smug expression is so reminiscent of Anya that Lexa can’t help but laugh. Anya laughs as well, disbelieving and wholly amused, before tossing the remote in his lap.

“Okay, beauty queen. You’re up. Pick something. And it better not be shitty or we’re dumping you in the pool. No pressure.”

“Oh no. Not the pool,” he deadpans, but his brow creases with concentration as he begins to flip through the channels.

And watching him, Lexa thinks that whatever conversation she’s going to have with Clarke will have to wait. Right now, this is more important. Right now she needs to give her time to her family. Soon Anya will be gone and eventually Clarke will leave and it’ll only be Lexa left to take care of Aden, to make him smile. So she needs to make him her priority always. She’s not his mom, and she definitely can’t replace his dad, but she’s his family. And that’s what he needs more than anything. Maybe it’s what she needs too.

Maybe, a small part of her whispers, Clarke is part of this too, but she pushes it aside. That’s an idea for later Lexa to question, to worry about.

And if a corner of her heart wishes Clarke was on the couch, curled into her other side, well…

That’s a problem for later Lexa as well.

//

Clarke is half asleep, her notebook tilted against her chest, when a knock on the door rouses her. A glance at her phone shows that it’s past eleven, but there’s only one person who’d be visiting her at all so she calls out for her to enter anyway. Lexa opens the door, stands watching her from the doorway with those quiet, solemn eyes of hers. Clarke looks right back and holds her silence. Lexa initiated this visit, after all. It’s Lexa who has to speak first.

When she does, it’s an underwhelming, “Hello, Clarke,” that makes Clarke roll her eyes. She rubs them – they’re gritty with fatigue and she really should sleep – and sets her notebook aside.

“Hello, Lexa,” she returns, her voice pitched in a low, mocking tone as she mimics Lexa’s serious voice. Her eyes flicker up and meet hers then and Lexa smiles faintly, just a small curl of lips that Clarke matches. More silence follows and it isn’t awkward, but it isn’t exactly comfortable either. It’s filled with unsaid things, with the shadows of lingering kisses and increasingly bold hands. Even the memory of it has Clarke shifting against her bed, drawing the blankets up more firmly around herself. “Are you going to come in or just keep standing in the doorway?” she asks at last, eyebrows lifting.

Lexa steps in and shuts the door quietly behind herself.

“We should talk,” she says in that quiet way she has, moving slowly towards the bed. She doesn’t sit, but stands a couple of feet away with her hands folded, and Clarke thinks that maybe they’re both aware of the fact that being in the same bed is probably not a good idea right now. Not if they’re going to try and avoid repeating what had happened earlier. Not that she wants to avoid a repeat, but she’s pretty sure Lexa does, so why invite trouble.

“We should?” Clarke laughs and draws her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, blanket and all. “Because we really don’t need to if you’re just gonna tell me that can’t happen again. I kind of figured you’d go that way.”

“We should talk,” Lexa says again, stubbornly, and Clarke sighs before motioning for her to continue. Lexa steps closer, just once, then freezes again with her eyes locked on Clarke’s face. It’s a piercing look, one that makes her feel like Lexa can look straight through her to the thoughts in her head, the wishes in her heart, and it isn’t comfortable. It makes Clarke drop her gaze, fingers plucking at a loose thread in her blanket as she waits for the words she expects to hear. We can’t do this, we have responsibilities, I don’t feel that way. She waits, but they don’t come. What she gets is entirely unexpected.

“Have dinner with me.”

Clarke’s eyes snap up. “What?”

“Dinner,” Lexa repeats, one corner of her mouth tilting up. “A date, Clarke. I feel like we’ve been forced by our situation to do things out of order, but I’d like to at least have dinner with you before we...”

“Before we have each other?” Clarke provides helpfully. She has to bite back a laugh when the tips of Lexa’s ears burn red, her mouth opening and closing before she manages to speak.

“That’s not how I would have phrased it, but yes.” Lexa clears her throat, her gaze skipping nervously away, and Clarke does laugh then before pushing aside her blankets and meeting her at the center of the room. She takes Lexa’s face gently between her palms, tilting her closer. And when Lexa doesn’t protest, she lays her lips gently on hers, sliding her fingers carefully through her hair.

“Yes,” she murmurs.

“Yes?” Lexa echoes, and Clarke’s lips curve smugly because she sounds just a bit dazed.

“Yes. Let’s go on a date.” She kisses her again, slowly, humming when she feels Lexa’s hands lift and curl over the crooks of her elbows. “But you know, I really don’t mind doing things out of order.” The words brush across Lexa’s lips as Clarke changes the angle of the kiss, chin tilting up into the soft pressure to request just a little more. “If you wanted to stay...”

“I...” Lexa shivers once against her and her fingers go tight around Clarke’s arms. “No, I shouldn’t. We shouldn’t.” She steps back and Clarke lets her go, though she’s buzzing again, aching, too warm. Lexa looks like she’s probably in the same state. Her hair is just slightly tousled from Clarke’s fingers now, her eyes wide and the greenest Clarke has ever seen them, and she wants nothing more than to drag her back in, consequences be damned. So she takes a step back, then another, until she is sinking onto the bed again.

She quickly grabs her notebook and pulls it onto her lap, feeling just a bit more certain now with her hands occupied and space between them.

Lexa stares back at her and it seems for just a moment that she might agree with Clarke about throwing caution to the wind. That she might step in and kiss Clarke again and let herself sink in and oh god, Clarke wants her to. But Lexa shakes her head after a minute and moves back towards the door instead, opening it with a soft sigh Clarke is sure she isn’t meant to hear. She looks back over her shoulder and their eyes catch.

“Goodnight, Clarke,” she murmurs.

“Goodnight, Lexa.”

And then she steps into the darkness of the hall and closes the door softly behind her.

Clarke waits a full ten seconds before releasing a breath and falling back against her mattress, eyes staring up at the ceiling. There is so much going on inside of her, too much, and she doesn’t know where to put it all. She closes her eyes and sees only the color of Lexa’s, dark and deep and yearning. The blues and greens of them pushed to the edges by the black of her pupils, blown out with desire.

She falls asleep and dreams of swimming in the ocean, floating through foam and waves, the safest she’s ever felt in so long.

(She dreams in memories of her father, memories of asking him how he knew he loved her mother.

“Because when I fell in love with her, kiddo, it was like I was blind to anyone else. I knew she was it.”

“Right away?” Clarke had asked, ten and scabby-kneed, still young enough to believe in fairy tales and love at first sight.

“No, not right away,” he'd mused, watching her mother from across their back yard. She'd been singing in the kitchen. Clarke could see her through the window. “But then one day she looked at me a certain way and smiled, and it’s like all the colors of the universe were in her eyes.”

“Did you paint with them?” Clarke had asked, already enamored with the idea of love that her father described. Jake had ruffled her hair, then wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“I sure did. And one day, Clarke, you’ll see them too. Those colors. I can’t wait to see what you create with them. You won’t even have to tell me you’re in love.” He’d grinned down at her. “I’ll know just by looking.”)

And when Clarke woke, she woke wishing for a paintbrush so that she could paint with all of the colors in the universe.