Chapter Text
Friday May 3, 1996 - 21 Years Old
“I guess what I really want to do is move people. You know, with my art," Clarke said. “Yes I can set bones and stitch wounds, but I’m more interested in healing peoples’ souls. Not their bodies.”
“I see.”
“You think that’s dumb don’t you? I realize how it sounds.”
“Not dumb,” Lexa replied carefully. “But why are you limiting yourself to souls and bodies. What about minds? That’s how real change happens. Through the power of the human brain.”
“So you’ll change the world through brainpower? Are you going to tell people what to think?”
“Of course not! But you can certainly change the way that they think.”
“Sure, in the long run, maybe you can do that. But there’s always the chance that someone just won’t change. But art,” Clarke sighed, “art changes people in an instant. It’s visceral, inescapable. Art evokes emotion, and emotion feeds the soul. Where would humanity be without that capacity to feel so much in so little time? I think, as much as we’d like to think we act with our heads, our hearts always win out.”
Lexa shifted then, from where she had been lying on her back with her head faced up towards the ceiling, and turned onto her side, propping her head up with one hand. She was silent for a few long moments, her eyes searching the side of Clarke’s face, and Clarke felt her cheeks growing hot under the weight of the other girl’s gaze.
“I’m sorry. I was ranting,” Clarke said. She grabbed the edge of the thin comforter where it lay covering her bare chest and pulled it over her head. She had waited so long to get into bed with Lexa and now she was ruining it with her quasi-philosophical rambling.
Lexa reached out and gently tugged the covers off of Clarke’s head. She bit her lip to hide the smile that threatened to come out when she saw the way Clarke’s hair had become frizzy from the static of the sheets. She reached across the bed to tuck a particularly rebellious strand of hair behind Clarke’s ear, the pad of her thumb grazing over the other girl’s cheekbone. Clarke blushed, light pink rising in a flash to her cheeks, and Lexa couldn’t help it then. She leaned over and kissed Clarke, slowly, lingering.
“I think we should call a truce on this one.” Lexa said, as she started to press light kisses to the underside of Clarke’s jaw, then to the sharp edge of the top of her collarbone. “Let’s change the subject.”
Clarke nodded, afraid to say anything lest her voice waver due to the effect Lexa’s kisses were having on her. She was almost grateful when Lexa stopped to lean back and think. Almost.
“Hmmm…” Lexa hummed, resuming her earlier propped up position. Clarke turned onto her side too, so that they were facing each other now, their legs just inches apart. “Ok. Let’s talk about the future.”
Clarke laughed and swatted at Lexa’s shoulder. “Isn’t that what we were just talking about? I thought you were changing the subject.”
Lexa caught Clarke’s hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it and Clarke’s laugh was abruptly cut off. “Not the future of humankind. The future of us.” Clarke blushed again, but this time she saw a matching blush on Lexa’s cheeks, the barest hint of red blooming high on her cheekbones. Lexa coughed lightly. “Sorry, the future of you. And me. Separately. Think of yourself at forty. Where will you be? What will you be doing?”
Lexa seemed to notice that she still held Clarke’s hand in hers, and she regarded it for a moment before flipping it over and pressing another kiss to the inside of Clarke’s palm. She looked up through her eyelashes as she did so, waiting for Clarke’s answer. Clarke quickly withdrew her hand before Lexa could kiss it again.
“Stop. I can’t think when you do that.”
Lexa smirked, her lips curling up wickedly.
“And stop that too.”
Lexa immediately smoothed her face into a blank expression. “Stop what, Clarke?”
Clarke closed her eyes and flipped onto her back again, partly so Lexa couldn’t fully see the ridiculous grin on her face that happened whenever Lexa said her name like that (so carefully, like it was something special), and partly so she could give the question some serious thought without Lexa as a distraction.
She tried for a few minutes. She really did. But it was a lot of pressure to answer a question that significant, especially when she could once again feel the weight of Lexa’s eyes boring into her from the side. She opened one eye and peeked at Lexa.
“Can you go first?”
Lexa laughed and pushed herself up so she was sitting against the headboard. The sheets slipped down over her naked torso, resting so that they were just barely covering her breasts, and she didn’t bother to reach down and adjust them. Clarke found herself wishing they would fall further. Lexa ran a hand through her hair.
“Alright. Give me a minute.”
Clarke followed the path of Lexa’s long fingers as they slid through chestnut hair and nodded. Of course she’d give her a minute. She’d give her anything. Because she was Lexa.
Lexa Woods. Here in her bed. It was unbelievable really. Clarke looked over at the other girl, still deep in thought, and let her eyes linger. She wanted to take in all of this. To remember it forever. A flickering light on the street corner cast a dull glow through the open glass window of Clarke’s room. The glow fell on Lexa’s cheeks, highlighting how high they were, how rounded on top and sharp underneath. She had long brown hair that fell to her shoulders in tousled waves that were somehow both wild and contained, effortless but styled. Delicately arched brows rested smoothly over wide, long lashed green eyes. The kind of green that reminded Clarke of her mother’s mint plants. The ones she had picked to make mint lemonade for Clarke, as a treat on a hot summer’s day. Sometimes, looking into Lexa’s eyes, Clarke felt as though she could taste that lemonade on her tongue, her mouth filling with a unique hint of earthy sweetness and sharp acidity that hit her like a punch in the gut.
Lexa’s strong, straight nose led to full, pink lips that were usually pressed into a careful, schooled expression but could sometimes be coaxed into a sly smile or, best of all, a musical laugh. And her body. God, her body. Clarke didn’t know what Lexa did to maintain it, if anything, but somehow the other girl was blessed with a long, lithe frame and taut muscles that Clarke was apt to get distracted by if Lexa was anywhere near her. She was regal, otherworldly. She was the kind of beautiful that commanded attention. People stopped to look at her on the street, they did double takes when they walked by her, eyes and mouths wide, murmuring who’s that girl under their breath.
They had met at a frat party their sophomore year. Not the most exciting of circumstances, but Clarke thought that she would remember that night for the rest of her life. Clarke had been standing with her friends when the crowd had parted in just the right way so that she could see Lexa across the room, surrounded by a group of people that seemed to be riveted on her every word. Their gazes met, drawn together even over that distance, and Clarke distinctly remembered choking on her drink upon seeing the hooded intensity in those cool green eyes. Octavia patted her on the back and Raven teased her for not being able to handle her alcohol and by the time Clarke looked back up, Lexa’s eyes were directed once more on the people in front of her.
Much later that night, as Clarke was well on her way to being much too drunk to function, Lexa approached their group alongside a devastatingly attractive guy named Lincoln, who turned out to be Octavia’s newest boy toy, and also Lexa’s best friend. Clarke had waved like a giant dork and blurted out Holy shit you’re gorgeous in Lexa’s general direction and Raven almost fell over from laughing so hard but Lexa’s blank, emotionless face had morphed into a slow, secret smile that was just for her and Clarke felt a heat unfurl low in her stomach.
Things moved slowly after that. Lexa could have anyone she wanted, and, judging by the gossip Clarke heard, she did. Girls left her apartment at any hour of the day, wearing last night’s rumpled clothes and smudged make-up like a badge of honor. But each girl was never seen more than one time. Lincoln says she’s not the type to date. School always comes first. She’s following in her father’s footsteps. Politics, you know . Octavia had whispered the words to her after she caught Clarke staring longingly at the back of Lexa’s head in their Astronomy lecture one too many times. Clarke sort of gave up on it after that, but then she and Lexa were paired up for an end of semester project, and the crush was renewed. Clarke got to spend much more time with Lexa, and she quickly found out that Lexa was smart. No, not just smart, but intelligent in a way that was beyond anything Clarke had seen. Clarke imagined Lexa’s mind as a sharp sword that she constantly worked at, kept bone rendingly sharp. Lexa’s mind was a weapon, and a deadly one. She made Clarke feel small and unsure as she easily navigated their confusing star charts and dense textbook chapters.
But Clarke also found out that, while Lexa maintained an impenetrable, stoic exterior most of the time, she was also kind. Once, after a particularly long day of working on the project, Clarke fell asleep at her desk while she and Lexa were in the midst of outlining their presentation. She woke up tucked into her bed, with a note on her nightstand saying that dinner was in the fridge and that they could resume work on the project that weekend. Clarke imagined Lexa carrying her to bed and her heart pounded so hard she thought it would burst.
Then one still, fall night, towards the very end of that sophomore semester, they did their final bit of work on the project. Clarke was looking through a telescope on the roof of their university’s planetarium, Lexa standing silently at her side. Clarke peered through the telescope’s sight at all the stars and suns and planets of the solar system laid out before her like some godly tapestry, and thought that earth was a masterpiece and life was a gift. But she couldn’t put that into words. It’s beautiful she had breathed out instead, and Lexa had said, in her light, quiet voice Yes, it is but when Clarke pulled back from the telescope Lexa’s eyes weren’t focused on the night sky but on Clarke’s moon white face, and Clarke suddenly felt that all of earth’s gravity was pushing on her heart because why else would it feel so completely eviscerated.
And so it went. Their groups started to hang out more and more, drawn by the connection of Octavia and Lincoln, who were practically inseparable. Clarke saw Lexa at group meals in the dining hall, she saw her on chilly fall afternoons in the football stadium as they cheered on their school’s team, and she saw her at hazy house parties and sweaty frat parties, standing at the opposite end of the table where she and Bellamy were crushing everyone in beer pong. Sometimes they talked, and Clarke cherished those moments of interaction, of getting to bask in the light of Lexa’s intense gaze and Lexa’s close-mouthed smiles because she had this way of making Clarke feel like she was the only person on earth she wanted to be talking to when they were together. But sometimes they didn’t talk, and that was ok too because Clarke thought that it was enough just to be around her.
And if Clarke felt like she wanted to throw up every time she saw Lexa go home with another girl, or if she wanted to cry every time Lincoln said he saw someone shimmying down the fire escape outside Lexa’s room…well, those times she chose to ignore. Besides, it’s not as if she was completely chaste either. Some nights Raven would groan, Clarke, you’re hot. Not like, my level hot, or Octavia level hot, or, shit, even your mom’s level of hot…But you’re goddamn hot. And you need to use that while you still can. Those nights she’d go out to the bars or the parties and she’d find the guy or girl there with the most intelligent eyes and the sweetest smile and she’d let herself fall into bed with them.
So the years passed, faster than Clarke could have ever imagined. Octavia led their school’s softball team to two national championships, and her relationship with Lincoln bloomed into a love that was so sappy that Raven took to pretending to hang herself whenever the pair kissed in front of her (which was very, very often). Raven won countless awards for her work in engineering, and shared frequent and not so secret hook ups with Bellamy, which she swore meant nothing to her but which caused Bellamy to look at her with his softest puppy dog eyes, which were usually only reserved for Octavia. And then there was Clarke. Clarke aced all of her biology finals and briefly dated a guy from her art class and applied to medical schools and wondered when she would ever be as happy as all her friends seemed to be.
In a flash, they were at the end of senior year, and the air around them was suddenly thick with expectation and doubt and excitement for the future. On the night after their graduation ceremony, in which Raven had been honored as valedictorian, they kissed and hugged their parents and relatives goodbye for the evening and then met at Raven and Octavia’s place for their first get together as college graduates. Clarke lounged on the scarred wood floor of the apartment and looked around at her small group of friends--Raven, Octavia, Lincoln, Murphy, Miller, Nyko, Bellamy (already a year graduated but in town for the occasion), and Lexa--and thought that she was so lucky to have found this group of people to share such an important time in her life with. Anyone up for spin the bottle? a tipsy Raven asked, and an equally tipsy Bellamy said What, are we in high school? but he was smiling and everyone else agreed to play. Raven spun first and landed on Bellamy--eliciting a round of cheers from everyone there besides Octavia and Murphy--then Bellamy spun and got Miller, then Miller got Clarke, and then it was Clarke’s turn.
The bottle seemed to spin forever, the brown glass whirling into a blur against the smooth, worn wood of the floor, but finally it came to a rest. Clarke looked up and saw that it was pointing at Lexa. Her mouth immediately felt like it was filled with sawdust, and she took a long, hard pull of the beer she had been nursing for the last half hour. Get on with it Miller called from his place across the circle from her, and Clarke glared at him before crawling forward on her hands and knees and coming to a stop in front of Lexa. Here I go she said, and immediately felt childish and ridiculous, so she leaned forward before Lexa could say anything in reply. The kiss was light, chaste, but when Clarke pulled back Lexa was looking at her with heavy, half lidded eyes and Clarke’s stomach immediately tied itself into a knot and both girls knew then, without having to say it, that they were going to be spending the night together.
They left Raven and Octavia’s apartment in a drunken tangle of limbs. Lexa pushed Clarke against the wall in the dark alleyway next to the building and Clarke grabbed Lexa’s shirt in her fists and kissed her in a way that was the exact opposite of the chaste one from earlier. Someone wolf whistled from an upstairs window in the neighboring complex so Clarke panted an invitation back to her place against Lexa’s lips and Lexa hesitated for just a moment before nodding. The walk back seemed to take an eternity, the air thick and crackling between them, and when they finally reached Clarke’s apartment Clarke closed the door and pulled Lexa to her. Are you sure , Lexa hesitated for the second time that night and Clarke just laughed and grabbed Lexa’s hand and pulled her towards her bedroom because she had never been more sure of anything in her twenty one years on earth.
Later, Lexa kissed her way down Clarke’s body and between her legs and Clarke thought that maybe the view through the planetarium’s telescope hadn’t been that great after all because the smattering of stars she had seen through the glass had nothing on the limitless galaxies she saw painted against her closed eyelids.
And that’s how they wound up here. Post-grads, post-coital, their naked bodies tangled in bed sheets, up and talking inexplicably at the crack of dawn. Clarke kept waiting for someone to pop out and tell her that this was all an elaborate joke but it still hadn’t happened yet.
“Come back to me.”
The words snapped Clarke out of her reverie and her eyes slowly refocused so that she could see Lexa looking at her, a small smile on her lips.
“What were you thinking about?” Lexa asked.
Oh, just about how ridiculously gorgeous you are and how stupid it is that you’re here with me right now is what Clarke thought, but what she said was, “Nothing really.” She tugged gently, teasingly on Lexa’s tousled hair (the same hair she had firmly pulled on last night to gain better access to Lexa’s neck). “You’re just taking so long with your answer.”
Lexa seemed to buy it because she sighed and leaned her head back against the headboard. “It’s a difficult question, Clarke. I need time to consider.” While Lexa spoke, Clarke watched the words tighten the muscles of her jawline and she swallowed, hard, against the pulse of desire she felt in her belly.
“Ok then, I’ll do it for you,” Clarke said. Anything to distract herself.
Lexa raised an eyebrow at her. “Really? Alright. This should be interesting.” Lexa crossed her arms over her chest and looked at Clarke expectantly.
“Well,” Clarke toyed with the hem of the comforter, thinking. “I know you want to get into politics. So I see you as a successful politician. Or a political…something or other. You’ll be respected. Revered, even. People will follow you willingly.”
“I can’t say I dislike the sound of that,” Lexa said, raising her chin in mock haughtiness. “But that’s an easy one. What about my personal life? Tell me about that, oh wise one.”
Clarke pretended to think very deeply. “You’ll live in a nice house. Nice car. Tasteful but clearly wealthy. And you’ll have a hot wife to match. “ The images sprang to Clarke’s mind, unbidden. “She’ll do everything you ask, and do it perfectly…but she’ll bore you eventually. She won’t be your equal. You’ll feel like something is missing and start to look elsewhere.”
Clarke didn’t know what made her say it, didn’t know that that was something she even thought. But the words were out before she could stop them.
Lexa’s eyes hardened into smooth, impenetrable emeralds and Clarke felt a prickle of fear at the sight.
“Is that what you think of me? That I’d just dispose of someone like that?”
“Lexa, that’s not what I…”
“Not what you meant,” Lexa said, voice deceptively even. “Then what did you mean?”
“I don’t know. I’m an idiot.”
But Lexa started to push off of the bed. “Maybe I should go. If you think I’m some kind of womanizing…”
“No, don’t.” Clarke interrupted, hating the hint of desperation that crept into her voice. “Please stay. I don’t think that about you at all.” She reached her hand out and grabbed Lexa’s bicep gently. “Please, Lexa. I’m sorry.”
Lexa looked at Clarke and saw her furrowed brow, saw the light mist in Clarke’s blue eyes that hinted at the sudden downpour that inevitably follow Lexa’s departure. Her sudden burst of anger evaporated just as quickly as it had come.
“Fine,” Lexa said gently, and she knew immediately that she had made the right choice when she saw the smile that brightened Clarke’s face. In one quick movement Lexa rolled onto Clarke, holding herself up with her arms on either side of Clarke’s face. Clarke slid her hands up to stroke Lexa’s bare ribs and scratch lightly down her back and Lexa shivered despite herself. “But now you have to make it up to me,” she said lowly before leaning down and capturing Clarke’s lips with her own.
------
Afterwards, Clarke made her breakfast. Lexa watched Clarke moving around the kitchen in just her underwear and an oversized white t-shirt. She glanced at the large clock on Clarke’s wall, which told her it was 5:30am, then she looked back at Clarke.
Lexa thought that it was really getting to the part where she should leave.
She never spent the morning, or even the night after a hook-up. And she never went back to their place. It was always at her place, always on her terms. Anything other than that was usually messy in a way that Lexa had zero tolerance for. But Clarke’s golden hair was spilling out of a bun haphazardly and her mouth was curled into a small smile as she hummed under her breath and cracked eggs into a bowl, and Lexa thought that maybe she would break her own rules just for a little while longer. Just for Clarke.
Clarke Griffin. Standing there before Lexa in the kitchen, with her alabaster skin and loose movements, Clarke was pretty. Ok, maybe more than pretty. She was striking in a way that made Lexa’s pulse beat faster just from looking at her. Clarke’s attractiveness was a matter of fact—one which Lexa found both inconvenient and undeniable. Clarke had perpetually sun kissed blonde hair and a pretty pink mouth that was always animated, usually with easy laughter or breezy jokes or impassioned speeches. Lexa liked to watch those lips curl around the end of a pencil as Clarke chewed on it while she was concentrating, which happened a lot when they were working on their Astronomy project. Clarke also had a Marilyn Monroe beauty mark and the curves to match, and Lexa often saw guys admiring her from behind, appreciating the bend of her ass in her jeans or the swing of her hips as she walked.
Lexa liked Clarke’s body, but she was more often distracted by Clarke’s eyes, so different from her own. Clarke’s eyes were the dark blue of the ocean after a storm—calm on the surface, but with a depth that suggested mystery, hidden treasure beneath the waves. In short, Clarke Griffin looked like every man’s ideal woman, and yet she wore her beauty so carelessly, as if she wasn’t even aware of it. Lexa thought that maybe that was a lot of the appeal, that Clarke could not seem to see the effect she had on people, or simply didn’t care.
And yet. Lexa had slept with a lot of woman with blonde hair and blue eyes and curvy bodies. Women who could beat her in a match of wits. Women who were funny, who didn’t realize their own beauty, who didn’t care how they looked, or how they treated others. She’d seen it all before.
So there had to be something else that set Clarke Griffin apart from the others.
Perhaps it was Clarke’s earnestness, her powerful, unwavering sincerity. Clarke wore her heart on her sleeve, and Lexa could tell that deception was a concept that was completely unbeknownst to Clarke. Because when Clarke looked at a person, she seemed to see past the surface, into that person’s very nature. She inspired a certain transparency in others, and gave it back doubly. Clarke was an open book, she was a complicated tangle of simmering surface emotions, which, to Lexa, was both terrifying and awe inspiring. Yes, that was probably it. Everything about Clarke was laid bare.
Lexa had first noticed this that very first night they met. When she had caught sight of a flash of blonde hair out of the corner of her eye and turned her head to see Clarke, standing across the room and swaying slightly, her blue eyes holding Lexa’s gaze. For a split second, Clarke hadn’t backed down, had actually looked at Lexa with a challenge in her eyes, and that wasn’t negated by the fact that Lexa saw her choke on her drink just a moment later. That one glance was enough for Lexa to be intrigued. But then someone had asked her something and she had been forced to turn away. Later, when Lincoln brought her over to be introduced to his new girlfriend, Clarke had sputtered out a compliment and Lexa felt affection bloom in her chest at this strange girl’s unexpected honesty.
They had started to spend more time together, first due to the project and then because of Octavia and Lincoln’s relationship. In those brief stretches when Clarke and Lexa’s lives collided in school, Lexa learned that Clarke was selfless, that she couldn’t walk past a homeless panhandler on the street without going into a nearby store to buy them something to eat, or giving them all the money she had in her wallet at the time. Clarke was also naturally smart, getting good grades while barely seeming to try. She easily balanced biology and organic chemistry classes with a full workload from the art school. But she liked to party, too. She held her alcohol extraordinarily well, to a point, but sometimes she’d have just one shot too much, and then she seemed to hit a wall of drunkenness from which there was no return and Hurricane Clarke (as Raven liked to call her) was unleashed onto the world.
And Clarke was also loved by her friends, to a degree that stunned Lexa, who was always surrounded by people but never really felt close to more than a few. Lexa liked to watch Clarke and her friend’s interact, that ridiculously good-looking threesome of Raven, Octavia and Bellamy. They all complimented each other so well: Raven with her razor sharp sarcasm and Octavia with her stubborn intensity and Bellamy with his hard exterior and bleeding heart. Lexa grew to like them all, to appreciate their presence and the color they brought to her life--but even amongst that special group, Clarke stood out above the others. And they all seemed to know it too. They listened to her and deferred to her because Clarke was the earth and they were all just so many satellites caught in her gravity. So that was another thing about Clarke that intrigued Lexa. Because Lexa commanded attention through a combination of fear and awe. She knew the kind of icy exterior she projected, and she used it as equal parts weapon and shield. But Clarke commanded attention in her own way. She didn’t seek it out, or put up any fronts. No, Clarke commanded attention because people genuinely loved her.
And that made Lexa wary. She could not, would not, be one of those people who was hopelessly enamored with Clarke.
But Lexa could tell that Clarke was into her, even if she had no idea why. She didn’t miss the way that Clarke’s eyes drifted down to her lips when she talked about the constellations on dreary afternoons spent working on Clarke’s couch. She saw the way Clarke smiled at her from across the sea of people in the bleachers between them on days that their group went to the football games. And there was that one night, at the end of their junior year, when Hurricane Clarke had appeared out of nowhere and Lexa had walked her back to her apartment, struggling to move forward with Clarke’s dead weight draped against her shoulder. Lexa had opened Clarke’s door and led her to the bedroom and put her into a faded, soft shirt to sleep in and that’s when Clarke had leaned forward and whispered, hot against her ear, you are the most gorgeous person I have ever seen, before promptly passing out on the bed. Lexa felt a painful squeeze of affection in her chest, one she had been feeling all too often lately with Clarke, and she realized her orbit around Clarke was getting too close after all. She risked getting pulled in, and she knew she shouldn’t. She couldn’t. Because returning Clarke’s feelings was not an option, and it was not an option because Lexa was too focused on her work and her future career and there was no room in that narrative for a gorgeous, golden haired girl with a big heart and an easy smile. Lexa would hurt her, if she allowed anything to happen, and the idea of hurting Clarke Griffin was absolutely unacceptable.
So she had left Clarke that night with a glass of water and an aspirin on her nightstand, and for the remainder of junior year and the entirety of senior year she had made a point to limit their interactions. She lost herself in other girls, ones that didn’t bring that painful ache to her chest, ones she knew she’d never have to see again. (Maybe there was some truth to Clarke’s earlier statement about discarding people but that was not something Lexa wanted to engage with. It scared her).
But, in the end, Lexa was weak. When Clarke had kissed her during that game of spin the bottle, Lexa had felt a stirring that she couldn’t ignore. She liked Clarke and she respected her, and frankly she wanted her, so she thought she could let something happen just that one time.
So now, here she sat. In Clarke’s apartment. Watching Clarke cook for her. After they had had sex. Twice.
Lexa had no idea what she was doing. She was breaking all the rules.
“Pancakes are ready.” Clarke said, setting a messily stacked plate on the island counter in front of Lexa and sliding a fork and a bottle of syrup over to her. Lexa eyed the pancakes hungrily but controlled herself, drizzling a little syrup before cutting a dainty piece and savoring the taste in her mouth. Not bad. Clarke leaned forward, resting her elbows on the counter across from Lexa and cupping her head in her hands.
“You’re not eating?” Lexa asked, noticing that Clarke had only made one plate of food.
“I’m not hungry. I rarely eat breakfast.”
Lexa nodded and cut another piece of pancake, this one a little less dainty, and brought it to her mouth. “You’re missing out,” she said.
Clarke shrugged noncommittally and continued to watch Lexa as she took a few more bites. The room was silent. All Lexa could hear was the sound of her own chewing and the ticking of the clock.
“Ok,” Lexa said, setting her fork and knife down. “This is weird. You can’t just watch me eat.”
“I can’t?”
“Absolutely not.”
“What do you suggest I do instead?”
Lexa tried to think of something that would distract Clarke. “Well, you never answered the question from earlier.”
“The forty year old thing?” Lexa nodded. “I did it for you. I can’t do it for myself! It’s too hard.”
Lexa put on the most pathetic face she could muster and Clarke laughed at how much she utterly failed at it. Something that beautiful could not be made to look pathetic, no matter how hard it tried.
“Try again?” Lexa asked, and Clarke rolled her eyes and sighed softly.
“Fine.” Clarke said. She stood up and tapped her fingers lightly on the counter. “I guess I see myself traveling a lot. Seeing the world. Getting inspired. Then I’ll settle down. Have a little gallery with paintings of all the places I’ve been.”
“Sounds lovely.”
“It does, doesn’t it.” Clarke smiled, pleased with herself.
“But what about your medical training?”
The smile slid off of Clarke’s face. “What about it?”
“You didn’t mention that at all? Aren’t you going to become a doctor?”
“I don’t know.” Clarke pushed back from the counter and crossed her arms. “I just don’t know if that’s the right path for me.”
“Clarke. Raven and Octavia both told me you received A’s in all of your biology classes. And isn’t your mother a surgeon? It would be so easy to follow in her footsteps.”
Lexa wasn’t sure why it was so surprising to her to hear that Clarke did not see a future for herself in the medical profession. She knew Clarke loved art, had seen a few glimpses of her work with her own eyes and found it breathtakingly beautiful, but art would not make a comfortable living.
Clarke was silent.
Lexa pressed onward. “Didn’t you apply to medical schools?”
Clarke nodded.
“And I’m sure you will get into all of them. You can’t just throw all of that away, Clarke. You could be saving people.”
Clarke’s next words sounded tight, like she was saying them through gritted teeth. “We already went over this. There is more than one way of saving people.” She leveled her gaze at Lexa. “And there has to be more to life than just surviving to make money and then die.”
Lexa opened her mouth, a retort on the tip of her tongue, about how life wasn’t just fun and games but something that had to be worked at, but a loud ringing interrupted her before she could say anything.
“That’s my phone. I’ve got to get it,” Clarke muttered, shuffling out of the room. The tension in the air relented a little more with each step she took away, and by the time Clarke reached the other room, it was mostly gone. Lexa could hear Clarke murmuring low to someone, but couldn’t hear anything that was being said.
Lexa stabbed her fork into what remained of her pancakes and left it there.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t understand where Clarke was coming from. She absolutely understood. In high school she had dreamed of running away, of getting lost in some exotic locale and never looking back. She had rebelled against her family, resenting them for constantly reminding her that she had to be on her best behavior because her stepfather was in politics and thus was constantly under public scrutiny. Lexa hadn’t listened. She had skipped class, smoked cigarettes, planned her escape. But then her mother had died, suddenly, and without warning. An undiagnosed heart condition were the whispers she heard from the other students at school and from the newscasters on television. That rebellious Lexa had put unnecessary stress into her mother’s heart, the one that would suddenly shudder and fail.
So Lexa decided to make it up to her. From that point on she had turned her course around. She studied, harder than she ever had in her life. She joined clubs, volunteered, became every bit the model student that her mother had wanted her to be. She got into a good college, and declared a political science major, just like her stepfather had. Just like her mother had hoped. She knew that chasing passion was something for young, foolish people. Not for practical adults who wanted to build a viable future and change lives in the process. (And definitely not for people who had watched their mother collapse on the shiny hardwood floor of their childhood home after a particularly bad screaming battle about missed classes).
In the other room, Clarke sat on the edge of her bed, suddenly feeling the weight of how tired she was. She rubbed at her eyes and yawned sleepily as she listened to the voice on the other end of the line. Her mother’s voice.
“Are we going to see you later? You slipped away rather quickly last night...”
“Mom, it’s 6 in the morning.”
“Oh, it is. Still on west coast time I guess. But we’re just so excited to be here. To see you.”
Clarke felt an all too familiar prickle of guilt at the reminder that last night at graduation was the first time she had seen her parents in a little over a year. She had chosen to go to school across the country, in Princeton, New Jersey. A place so completely different than her sunny California childhood. And for the past year or so something had always come up on her holiday breaks at school. A trip to visit Lincoln’s family in Maryland with Octavia and Raven, a final that needed to be focused on without distraction, and other various reasons--all more exciting than the idea of going back home and having to field constant questions about what medical schools she was looking at and why she never seemed to have a boyfriend for any significant period of time.
“I know, mom.” Clarke breathed out. “I’m excited you’re here too.”
“So we’ll see you later? We’ll take you to dinner, catch up.”
“Ok.” Clarke said, and she could practically feel her mom’s smile through the phone. It was the least Clarke could do for them, after they had traveled so far to watch her walk across the stage to receive a ridiculously irrelevant piece of paper while wearing a ridiculously stupid hat.
“Great!” In the background, Clarke could hear her dad’s voice. Let the kid get some sleep, Abby. And then his voice was there, in her ear.
“We love you, kiddo. See you later. I promise I won’t let your mom ask too many questions.”
Clarke’s heart swelled with her love with him. Since she was a child, her dad had been her rock. He always knew what to say, when to reach out, and she loved him with fierceness that could not be put into words. “Thank you. I love you too.”
The line went dead and Clarke pulled the phone from her ear and set it down. She sat there for a moment, already running through the things she would say to her mom, and then Lexa appeared in the doorway.
In those few minutes on the phone, Clarke had completely forgotten about the earlier tension, and though the memory of it came back to her now, she couldn’t find it in herself to continue that discussion. Besides, Lexa was looking at her with gentle eyes and a tiny piece of pancake stuck to her chin and Clarke couldn’t do anything other than smile up at her.
“Anyone important?” Lexa looked at Clarke questioningly. She walked forward and sat on the edge of the bed gently. Not touching Clarke, but close enough that her hair brushed Clarke’s shoulder, sending goosebumps down her spine.
“Just my parents,” said Clarke. “They want to see me later.”
“Sounds nice,” replied Lexa, and Clarke looked at her sideways, strain evident on her face.
“You don’t know my mother,” Clarke said, and Lexa’s heart hurt for her.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. She means well. It’s just...hard, sometimes.”
Lexa looked at Clarke and saw the tiredness that had crept into her eyes, exhaustion that she was entirely to blame for.
“Do you…” Lexa gestured at the bed behind them. “You look tired. You should sleep.”
Clarke nodded, the sudden fatigue rendering words an expendable form of communication. She pulled her legs up into the bed and laid her head on the pillow, golden hair splayed out behind her. Lexa reached out and ran her hand over Clarke’s arm, ending at Clarke’s chin. She cupped it gently and leaned down to kiss her. Clarke’s eyes were closed, her breathing evening out already, and Lexa hoped that Clarke understood that this kiss meant thank you and it meant you are special and it meant goodbye all at once. Lexa pushed off of the bed and gathered her clothes. She’d put them on outside the bedroom, so as not to disturb Clarke. When all her things were in her arms, she turned and padded towards the doorway. A slight prickle ran up her neck, a feeling like she’d forgotten something. She knew what it meant. She shouldn’t turn around. That would be bad. That would be against her rules…
But fuck it, those rules were already long broken. Lexa turned around.
Clarke was looking right at her. “You should stay,” she whispered from the bed, and Lexa’s legs moved without any thought on her part.
There was a chance she’d regret this later. There was a chance she’d never see Clarke Griffin again after this day. But Lexa knew, way down in the dark chambers of her sealed off heart, that both of those things were probably not true.
In the half light of dawn, Lexa watched the sun rise on Clarke’s bare skin and wondered why rules existed when breaking them felt so goddamn good.
And just as Lexa was beginning to let fall asleep, just as she felt herself giving in to her own body’s weariness, she heard Clarke speak, low and gravelly.
“Stay with me,” she said.
“I am,” Lexa replied and Clarke shifted backwards a little in Lexa’s arms, so that they were more fully entwined.
“I meant for the day. Spend the day with me.”
Lexa tensed a little bit at those words. Her breath caught in her throat. She opened her mouth to speak, not sure if she was going to like what would come out…
“As friends,” Clarke interrupted her. “Just as friends.”
And there it was. Clarke was giving her a key, an out. Because if Clarke was just her friend, spending the day with her was acceptable, normal even. Clarke was saving her--saving them.
“As friends.” Lexa felt the tension drain from her body as she nodded against the back of Clarke’s neck.
(And if she had a vague thought that friends were good but she could see Clarke Griffin being more than a friend, and if she thought for a fleeting moment that Clarke sleeping in her arms was the best thing she had felt in far too long...well then those thoughts were quickly submerged in the dark black depths of her dreamless slumber. And when she woke up, they were lost completely).