Chapter Text
Waking up in your own bed after an extended absence is supposed to be refreshing, reinvigorating, something someone looks forward to. This is not the case for Lexa Woods. After years of being shipped around, sleeping whenever and wherever possible, not sleeping for days on end, it was absolutely, devastatingly, soul crushing. It was also physically painful, not only the kink in her neck but the ache pretty much everywhere else. The last two months have been brutal and there were moments when she just wanted it all to stop. Not in a suicidal way, but in a screaming at the top of her lungs for life to go fuck itself kind of way. She rolled over to the left side of the bed and sighed at the picture on the night stand. The one with her forced smile, her mother’s smug smirk and her father’s cold eyes. She sees it now, the vanity and conceit her mother oozes. She also sees how utterly miserable her father looked. In every picture, his eyes were glazed over, drained of life.
She remembered a time, before his company took off, before the money and the fame and the power. Before boarding school, missed calls on birthdays, Christmas’ spent either apart or pretending they were a family on the beach somewhere like St. Barts. She remembered his laugh, his real laugh, not that composed chuckle she sometimes heard on her phone calls home. He used to have this infectious, side-splitting, shoulder shaking laugh. She hadn’t heard that laugh in years, and now she’ll never hear it again.
She let out a deep sigh, then slowly pushed her way off the soft mattress, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She remembered to not put all of her weight on her newly healed ankle. The ankle wasn’t nearly as bad as the shoulder, but today she is just going to have to suck it up. She rose from the bed and stretched like the physical therapist showed her. Two more weeks and she could start running again. Maybe with some luck, even lifting weights. This is what her life was reduced to, being hopeful for normality.
Four years in the Marines, after four years of college, after 4 years of boarding school and this is her life. Well for now, anyway. She went to her closet and found clothes her mother would find suitable for breakfast, which meant getting fully dressed for the day, obviously. She selected a pair of dark grey slacks and a blue button down shirt. She then made her way into the bathroom and turned on the shower. As the water warmed she stepped out of her night clothes and tossed them into the hamper. Stepping it's the hot water, she felt some of the tension in her muscles begin to melt away. Once out of the shower, she dried and brushed her hair then brushed her teeth, applied a very light dusting of barely there makeup, again to make her mother, well happy isn’t the word, content? Maybe that’s it. She just didn’t want to hear about being ‘un-presentable’ for the nine hundredth time in her twenty six years of life.
Once her clothing was on, she made her way down out of her room and down the long hallway to the stairs. She descended them slowly, ankle still sore from the freshly healed break, once at the bottom her pace quickened slightly at the smell of Edward’s bacon. She rounded the last corner, into the large dining room, to find her mother seated in her normal spot at the head of the table.
“Good morning, Mother.” She greeted dryly.
Without looking up from the newspaper, Victoria Woods responded. “Alexandria, dear, how nice of you to finally join me.” Lexa rolled her eyes at the condescension in Victoria’s tone and took her seat at the table, one that already had a well rounded breakfast placed in front of it. “As soon as you are done eating, I will have Edward pull the car around. I refuse to be late to this appointment.”
“Of course, Mother.” She ate quickly, but formally, attempting to forget the last four years of just shoveling food as close to her mouth as possible and hoping for the best. Ten minutes later, Edward was sent to fetch the black Lincoln town car. The two women slid into their seats as soon as the door was opened for them.
Lexa looked to the woman across from her and thought of her mother's life. Victoria Woods used to be Victoria Lambert. Originally from Salt Lake City, she met Christopher Woods in college. She was a freshman at USC, studying English Literature, the first time she saw him. His sandy brown hair and thick framed glasses both slightly reflected sunlight, nearly shimmering. They danced around each other for four months before Christopher worked up the nerve to ask her on a date.
Five years later they married, three years after that their one and only child was born. Alexandria Erin Woods, six pounds fourteen ounces of physical perfection. She had her mother's dark brown hair and her father's green eyes.
Both parents worked, Christopher in computer programming, Victoria as a highschool teacher. Until Christopher started his own company that is. That's when everything changed.
The car had made its way across town and arrived at one of the downtown law offices in Los Angeles’ financial district. The sign on the wall across from the elevator read Arnold, Brickner and Friedman LLP, but Lexa knew it to be Uncle Gus’ firm. Her father's best friend had always handled all of his legal matters, this would be no different.
They made their way to reception, where they were recognized right away and shown into a conference room. Victoria took her seat at the middle of the table and Lexa sat next to her. They were given bottled water and left to wait for Gustus Arnold. It didn’t take long for the burly man to walk into the conference room, closing the door behind him. He made his way across from the two women and sat with a huff.
“I wish we didn’t have to do this.” He started. “Thankfully Christopher was very, very prepared for this to happen.”
Victoria smiled wryly. “That’s our Christopher, always thinking ahead.”
“So, I have an itemized list of certain possessions he has left to certain people. However, most possessions went to you, Victoria.” He paused and sighed. “Lexa, this folder contains all of the information regarding the accounts your father left instruction for us to open in your name, with the amounts in each account. Your total inheritance totals four hundred seventy three million.”
Lexa’s jaw dropped. “I’m sorry, what?” She knew her dad had a lot of money, but that much was insane.
“You heard me right, kiddo. As for the company, well, Anya Black has been named CEO by the board. I know your father trusted her with everything, personally and professionally, so I think that’s a wise choice. Victoria, do you have any questions?” She was currently engrossed in the several page document of itemizations.
“There are properties on here I didn’t even know Christopher purchased. One in Maine even, he knows I hate Maine. It’s just dreadful, awful.”
“Yes, I believe that one was listed to go to Lexa. It’s right here with a note from him.” Gustus flipped open the folder for Lexa and pulled out a sheet of paper with several photos of the property. “This house is to be your home away from home. Polis is listed as one of the greatest small cities in America, and I must say I agree. Use it as an escape, or for everyday life. Find a nice man and settle down.” Gus read the note from her father and gave Lexa a look. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what was wrong with that look, but something wasn’t sitting right. She rolled her eyes at the last sentence, her father clearly hadn't changed his view on her sexuality.
It tooks several hours to get through all the documents they needed to, but around three o’clock, they were finally done.
“Victoria, why don't you head on out. I would like to catch up with Lexa. I'll make sure she gets home safe.”
The older Woods huffed. “Very well. Don't get into anything stupid, like last time Gustus.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’ll be good.” Gustus and Lexa watch as Victoria steps into the elevator before moving back to his office. “So, first things first. How are you really?”
She lets out a low whistle. “These last two months have been rough, Gus. She doesn't make it any easier either. Sometimes, I swear she thinks everything is my fault.”
“It's not kid-”
She cuts him off. “Oh, I know. I wasn't flying the helicopter that got shot down. I wasn't driving the car that hit my dad. I know, but ever since that summer before college, it's like we just exist near each other. We don't have a relationship, not that we had much of one before. Now, it’s like having a brutally honest boss.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and deeply sighed. “She still hasn't accepted your sexuality, huh? Well, I hate to be the person to shovel more shit on top of you kiddo, but there is something we need to discuss, and by the end of this conversation, well I don't really know what's going to happen.” He walks across the room to a small bar he has set up and pours two glasses then walks back to Lexa and sits across from her, handing her the glass. “Scotch, the good shit.”
“You're making me nervous, Gus.” She sits back in her chair, glass in her hand, and stares directly at her uncle.
“Well, um, this is gonna be really difficult for you to hear, and I am truly sorry. I'm going to start at the beginning, so bare with me for a bit okay?” She nods and her continues. “Twenty one years ago, your father went public with the plans for the first Model W router, revolutionizing the technology industry and Wi-Fi in general. After several very wise investment opportunities and business deals, CEW Technologies was able to expand exponentially. Christopher decided there needed to be two main hubs for the business. One here in LA, and one on the east coast, specifically Boston. Well two years later, at a charity benefit for the Boston Children's Hospital, he met some people he really liked, friends that he could spend time with so east coast trips weren't always so draining. Well, one of those people was a woman named Aurora Blake.” Gus watched as Lexa’s jaw clenched and her grip on the glass of scotch tightened. She didn't say anything, just glared. He knew she was forming an assumption about where exactly this was going. He cleared his throat lightly and continued. “Aurora and your father started having an affair. At first, it was just sex, then feelings happened. Then two years in, Aurora got pregnant.”
Lexa’s grip on her glass tightened again. “So, what? You're telling me my father has some secret family on the other side of the country? I'm supposed to believe that my father, the most brilliant man any of us have ever known, couldn't figure out a way to leave my mother and go be happy with someone else?” Her glare hardened and she looked to her pseudo-uncle with emotionless eyes. She and her father had their fair share of difficulties but his intelligence has never been a question for her. He was, undoubtedly, brilliant.
“I'm sorry, Lexa, but yeah. That's exactly what I'm saying.” He sighed again, then tossed back his scotch. He waited for some reaction from her, some sign of her emotion regarding the secret.
She stared blankly at him for minutes that seemed to drag on eternally. “Who knows about this, besides you my dad and his little secret family?”
“Some people in Aurora’s life and well, um, Anya.” He winced as he said the last word, knowing that one would hurt her most.
“What?! Anya, my best friend, knew about all of this?” She stood abruptly, slamming the glass down on the table. She began to pace the room, back and forth. “How long?”
“Anya? Well, when you got hurt, he was with them. No one could get ahold of him to tell him to get to Bethesda, so I sent Anya up from Boston. I hoped she would just knock on the door, he would answer and then she would leave, but I guess one of the kids answered. When she asked for Christopher, the kid shouted Dad. She gave him an ultimatum, he tells you within the next month or she quits and tells you herself. Then he died, and I told her I would tell you. It’s not her fault, none of this. If you hadn’t been hurt, she probably would have done it that day.”
Lexa sighed and took her seat back in the chair. “Fuck, Gus. This is my nightmare. Well not this specifically, but him dying and having some shit I have no idea how to deal with. I've been out of the loop for so long. Hell, we haven't been a family in so damn long.” She leaned back and ran her hands over her face. She leaned forward again and slammed her scotch, then held her glass out for him to refill, and did the same thing, placing the now empty glass on the table. “Are they taken care of, financially I mean?”
“They are. Christopher has been moving money for years into an account for Aurora and the kids.”
“How many are there? Kids, I mean?”
“Four. Bellamy is the oldest, he’s sixteen next week. Then Octavia, she’s fourteen, almost fifteen. Olivia is nine and Charlie is three. They, uh. They live in Polis too. Their address is on the last page in your folder.” Gustus looked to her with concern when she didn't speak. “What’s going on in that head of yours? Talk to me.”
“Well, first off, I am fucking pissed that you helped him keep this secret.” She glared at him. He ducked his head and nodded. “I have a lot of questions but…” She sighed and closed her eyes. “But they aren't for you. I don’t want to talk to you about this any more. Or ever again for that matter.” She stood abruptly and made for the door.
“Lexa! Wait.”
“Gustus!” She bit and grit her teeth. “I’m done with this conversation.” She made her way through the main floor of the law office and back to the elevator. She had the folder from their earlier meeting tucked under her arm as she stepped inside and pressed the lobby button. She pulled out her phone and scheduled an uber to take her home.
She arrived home, to be met by her mother informing her they would be joined for dinner by Thomas Linaker, a business partner of her father’s. She watched as her mother flirted with him, touched his forearm lightly and leaned toward him when she spoke. Her stomach turned and she rose announcing her need for fresh air.
She slowly made her way out of the house and onto the back porch, leaning on the railing. She pinched her shoulder blades together and allowed her head to drop down. The house overlooked downtown LA. She took a deep breath, looked up at the view and sighed deeply. Many thoughts ran through her mind as she stood and looked out over the city. How did her family get here? How did she move forward? Does she reach out to these people, get to know them? A soft voice broke her out of her thoughts.
“Miss Alexandria, do you need anything?” Edward, the long time family butler approached her slowly.
“Yeah. I do.” She turned to face him with a hardened glare. “The truth. How long have they,” She gestured toward the door. “been fucking, Edward?” She watched as his eyes widened and mouth opened then closed. She didn't mean to snap at him, it wasn't his fault.
“I’m sorry, Miss Alexand-”
“Edward. Just tell me. After the day I’ve had, the last thing I am going to do it run in there and confront them.”
He shakes his head and sighs. “A while, ma’am. More than two years.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “And how many others have there been?”
He sighed and his shoulders slumped. “Before him was Ken, the landscaper for a year and a half, before that was Chuck Wilder for nearly five.”
“Jesus. Fucking. Christ.” She ran her hands through her hair, gripping tightly. After a minute, she relaxed. The butler looked to her, concern evident in his eyes. “Edward, will you please arrange a car to take me to the airport, a flight to Boston, a car there, and a hotel.”
“Of course, Miss.” He quickly turned and walked away, back into the house. Undoubtedly retreating from further cross examination. Lexa watched him go then breathed out hard. She went back into the house and found her mother and Thomas in the lounge.
“Mother, I am going to go to Boston. I will be visiting Anya for a while.” Her words came out flat, emotionless.
Her mother smiled brightly. “Of course, dear. You deserve a vacation. When will you be leaving?”
“Immediately.” She bit, she didn’t mean to, but she did.
“Edward can make your travel arrangements. I’ll let him know.”
“I already have. I’m going to pack now, I’ll let you know before I leave.”
Nine hours later, seven in the morning Boston time, Lexa was reaching her hand up to knock lightly on the familiar apartment door. It took a few moments, but the door was finally wrenched open.
“Lexa." The taller blonde managed to squeak out. "Hey, come in.” The younger brunette walks in slowly, passed her best friend. “I think I -”
The visitor held her hand up, halting a guaranteed ramble from Anya. “I’m not mad. Well, that’s not the truth. I am fucking livid, with just about everyone, but not you.”
“Thank god.” The blonde’s tense posture immediately relaxed as she sighed out. “Come on, sit down. Let’s talk.” She pointed to the couch, and pulled out her cell phone, finding the contact she needed and quickly pressing call. “Dinah, hey, what time is my first meeting today? Okay, yeah. Reschedule everything before lunch. Apologize profusely and tell them to expect a gift for their flexibility. Thanks Dinah.” She made her way over to the couch and sat next to Lexa.
“Congrats by the way.”
“Thanks. I’d rather he still be here. I’m CEO because of you though.”
Lexa shook her head. “No, Ahn. All I did was introduce you two. You did the work. You got yourself here.” She sighed and leaned back into the couch. It took a few minutes before she found the will to speak, and Anya stayed quiet allowing her the process. “Both of them were fucking around and neither one knew.”
Anya’s jaw dropped. “Wait, both of them? I mean, I knew about your dad. I am really sorry about that by the way, I literally dialed your number and was mid call before I realized you were in the hospital, and that was the reason I even found out.”
“It’s okay, Ahn. Gustus told me everything.”
“Okay, but what about your mom?”
Lexa chuckles. She doesn’t know why this would ever be funny, but here she is, laughing. “Edward said she has been fucking Thomas Linaker for the last two years. Several people before that. What the actual fuck, Anya? Why can’t I just have a normal life?” The laughter is quickly turning into tears. “Wh-why couldn’t my mom and dad just love each other and accept me for how I am. Why is everything so fucked?” She leaned into her friend who quickly wrapped her in a tight embrace.
“Shit, I don’t know Squirt. But I’m here for you. I’m not going anywhere.” Anya rubs a soothing pattern of small circles on the crying girl’s back. “Is this the first time you’ve cried since he died, since you got hurt?” She gets a nod into her chest.
“I can’t be weak around Victoria, you know that. It’s bad form to let my emotions get the better of me.” Lexa pulls back and looks her friend in the eye.
“Now I understand why you joined the Marines.” Anya smirks at her. “How are you doing by the way, physically I mean?”
“Good. Sore, but good. Ankle is pretty much healed, shoulder is getting there, the wound on my just below my ribs is almost better. It’s almost like they never had to rearrange my insides.”
“Good. That’s really good. You don’t have a bag, did you get a hotel? How long are you staying?”
“I did, only because I wasn’t one hundred percent sure you would be here this morning when I arrived. I don’t know how long I am staying yet. I think I know what I need to do, but I really need to think it over.”
Anya nods. “Well I am here if you need me. Let’s go get some breakfast.”
Three days. It took Lexa three days to decided how to proceed with her life. She talked with Anya about her decision and one week after landing, one doctor's appointment at the nearest physical therapist, and one car purchase, Lexa is leaving Boston in her rear view mirror. As she traveled north, she took in the view. Well, as best she could while driving. She found herself awestruck by the multitude of colors nature presented when left relatively undisturbed. Being the tail end of August, the leaves are mid shift. They covered every shade possible on the spectrum between green and deep red. Seven hours and one pit stop later, she was approaching the first address from her folder.
She parked her car and let out a deep sigh. One look around revealed a small main street of a sleepy little town in Maine. Polis was about thirty minutes north of Portland, population 1,422, but it seemed it was mostly unincorporated. She pulled her keys from the ignition, even though she was fairly sure she could leave the car running with a giant blinking neon sign on it that said free, and it still wouldn’t get taken. She stepped from the car and made her way to the entrance of the business she was parked in front of. The bell above the door jingled as she pushed it open.
“Just a second!” A male voice from the back room shouted. She waited at the counter for him to appear. The lobby of the small building was various shades of green with wood accents. Her surveyance was interrupted by the male’s voice again. “Hello, sorry about the wait. I was on the phone. Welcome to Polis Rental Agency. I’m Finn, how can I help you?”
She looked at the floppy haired man-boy in front of her for a moment. He had the kind of smile that just beamed genuine. “Hello, I was told to come here to receive the keys to my house.”
“Of course.” He gave her an easy smile. “What’s the address?”
“214 Ashbury.”
“Oh.” He looked to her for a moment. “Right. Um, one second please.” He disappeared into one of the back offices and reappeared with a manila envelope. “So, your property is a two story with full basement, fourty-two hundred square feet. It’s got a pool, gym, theater room and a game room. It’s also fully furnished. Your, um, your father paid for once a month cleaning service. Would you like to continue that or increase it?”
She looked to him and tilted her head to the side slightly. “Once a month is fine, for now. I am not sure how long I am staying.”
“Right. Well, here are the keys. There is also a full set of instructions for everything in the house. It’s completely upgraded, Mr. Woods spared no expense.”
“He never did. Thank you.” She picked up the envelope, turned and walked back toward the door. She stopped abruptly and turned back toward the counter. “Finn, is there anywhere to get a cup of coffee around here?”
“Oh, right. Here.” He moved around the counter and walked quickly toward the door. He pulled the door open and stepped on to the small porch, motioning for her to follow. “Okay, across the way is the grocery store.” He pointed to each building as he explained what is where. “Then next to that is the butcher. Next to the butcher is Mayor Jaha’s office and the sheriff's department. Across from the mayor is the veterinarian's office, they have a fresh litter of German Shepard’s if you are looking for a pet.”
She furrows her brow at the comment, thinking about the dog they had in her camp in Afghanistan. She did really like having him around. “Oh, uh. Maybe actually.”
Finn nods and smiles at her. “Next to Nyko, oh he’s the vet, is Dr. Griffin’s office. She is there Tuesday thru Friday. Then my girlfriend’s auto repair shop on the corner there, the building across the street has the one bar in town. At the far end on the opposite side of the street is Harper’s diner. It’s 24 hour, since we are right off the main highway. Lots of truckers stop there, the food and coffee is great.”
“Thank you Finn, you’ve been very helpful.” She says genuinely.
She smiles his proud, beaming smile at her. “It’s no problem. I'm sorry for your loss, but incidentally, welcome to Polis.”