She throws her keys on the table just inside the door in a messy heap. The table is a mess. The table is always a mess. Hershey, a silky, solid brown cat brushes against her leg, happy to see her and happy to be getting dinner soon. She walks slowly into the kitchen, lazily depositing the mail on the kitchen table, which (surprise!) is also a mess. The bills are piling up and the magazines that she never asked for lay haphazardly scattered across the surface. A bowl of fake fruit sits in the middle, half covered by old tax forms and papers from work. She thinks she should throw the magazines out, but maybe not right now. Instead, she decides to make herself a cup of peppermint tea, first setting a kettle full of water on the stove, then popping a tea bag into her favorite mug before turning around to pick up Hershey, who is still following at her feet.

“It’s been a long day, huh, bud? Yeah I bet you’re hungry…” she coos in a small voice. She picks up the cat and brushes her face against the soft fur of his head and he nudges her back in response before turning to lick her nose. She hears the sound of nails on the hardwood floors before she sees him, Butterscotch, a fluffy and stout golden retriever. “I was wondering where you were, Butter… You look like you just woke up…” she notes as she rubs the top of his head after licking her hand. She can hear the garbled sound of the water beginning to boil in the kettle and she decides she has enough time to get their food taken care of while the water gets hotter. “Dinner time for my two favorite boys!” she says in an excited tone which of course gets Butterscotch tap dancing on the floors. Hershey looks like he couldn’t care less, though she knows otherwise.

As soon as the food has been set down (Butter’s first because otherwise he will try to eat Hershey’s), both boys are scarfing down their food like they hadn’t eaten in 30 days and tomorrow’s never coming. She scoffs at their antics before taking the kettle off the burner. She never lets the kettle get to the point where it whistles; she can’t stand the sound. It sets her teeth on edge.

She walks over to the table, steeping tea in hand and picks up the package which arrived several days ago and you have been content to ignore since. The box contains invitations which she’s not sure she wants to send out in the first place but she’s sure as hell the poster child for artists struggling to pay rent and a myriad of other problems and she needs buyers. Like, yesterday. Sending out these invites might get her those gravely needed buyers. So, she'll be sending out the letters.

She’s got some big names on her list, courtesy of some of her connections. But the anxiety she feel about those big names is nothing compared to what she feels when she thinks about the one at the bottom with the question mark next to it.

It’s been two years since she’s seen her and when she looks at the name she can feel the ghosts of the past hanging around her neck, tugging on her collar, and again she is second guessing whether or not she should send it. Finn didn’t seem to think it was a good idea. Her past is a wretched, heartbroken thing and few things hurt as much as what happened between herself and that name. Despite the pain, she was always her best friend and she doesn’t want to miss her, not after everything that happened, but we don’t always get what we want; her past makes that abundantly clear.

She sighs as she runs her finger over the name, which is embossed and pearly grey.

Lexa Woods

“Lexa, get your ass down here! You’re going to be late!” Anya yelled from the bottom of the staircase.

Lexa checks her hair in the mirror of her bathroom and grabs her glasses off the counter before sauntering slowly down the stairs. She won’t admit it out loud, but she had a hard time picking an outfit for her first official day of school at Magnus Ark High School. She settled on a white button down, a thin charcoal tie done in a trinity knot, a pair of charcoal shorts and, of course, black suspenders. Her white Vans are waiting at the door, brand new. “Relax, Anya. School will still be there even if I am five minutes late,” Lexa says as she rounds the corner into the living room and then into the kitchen.

“We have to leave like, now, Lexa. Come on!” Anya’s already walking out the door with a brief case in hand and a suit jacket thrown over her shoulder. Lexa simply pulls a macintosh apple from the fridge before roughly grabbing her backpack off the floor by the door and shoving her feet into her shoes. Anya’s already in the car and has an exasperated look on her face, clearly annoyed by Lexa’s laid back demeanor. “You know, just because it doesn’t matter if you’re late doesn’t mean I can be late!”

“Sorry, An. I will be on time tomorrow,” Lexa says, letting just the teensiest bit of guilt seep into her voice.

“Better be or I’m letting you take the bus for the rest of the year!” Anya teases as they pull out from the driveway.

“You would never!”

“Oh believe me, I would love to see you fend for yourself on a bus of stinky middle schoolers and douchey high school boys.” Lexa simply rolls her eyes and decides to spend the 15-minute ride to the school scrolling slowly through Instagram, nearly drooling over the images of journals and fountain pens that show up in the feed. She is determined to get her hands on an architect nib at some point, which she would have already done if she had the money to send out her favorite Lamy nib for customization. She’ll just have to settle with what she’s got.

Lexa groans internally when the car pulls up outside the front entrance to the school. As she unbuckles, Anya says seriously, “Text or call me if you need anything.”

“Yes sir, madam, sir,” Lexa snarks in response.

Anya retaliates with Lexa’s least favorite nickname, “Good luck on your first day, Munchkin!”

“Anya! I told you not to call me that!” Lexa whispers angrily. Lexa turns around with a salute to Anya, muttering beneath her breath, “It’s too damn early in the morning for this.” It’s a small school, Anya had told her, around 150 students in each graduating class, and it’s something new for Lexa. Her past schools have been very large, around 800 students in her class which allowed her to skate by unnoticed by most. Lexa enjoyed her time to herself and never wanted to feel like she had to put on a good face for someone else’s sake. She isn’t sure how much different this school will be, but she hopes it won’t be as tight-knit as television shows make it seem. The last thing she wants is somebody snooping around in her personal life.

Lexa walks to the school office, which luckily isn’t hard to find in a school this small. The administrators had said they would be mailing Lexa her schedule after she had picked what classes she would like to take, but nothing ever came in the mail. She’s starting a week later than everybody else, so she can only hope that the office will have her schedule ready for her. Lexa walks through the door to the office and stands in front of a large counter which separates a small seating area from other smaller office desks. A woman sitting off to the right perks up when she hears Lexa come in, “Oh! How can I help you?”

Lexa thinks her voice is too sickly sweet and keeps her mouth sealed shut in that regard but says instead, “I uh, I need to pick up my schedule. It’s my first day and I was supposed to get my schedule in the mail but it never came.”

“Oh no, well we’ll fix that up real quick! What’s your name, dear?” she asks with a smile that’s all too big as she gestures for Lexa to follow her to her desk. Lexa gives the woman her name and stands awkwardly by the desk, kicking one leg outward and popping the other knee back. The secretary types away on the computer through the school’s data base on schedules; Lexa keeps her bored expression firmly in place, trying to convey just how little she needs and wants to be here. The secretary doesn’t seem to get the message though, her voice as chipper as ever as she hands Lexa her schedule with a chipper, “Here you go! Do you need help finding anything?”

Lexa’s looking over her schedule the second it hits her fingertips and nearly forgets to respond to Miss Saccharine’s question. “No, thanks, I can take it from here,” Lexa informs her with a nod before turning on her heel to walk out and find her first class. She’s thankful to see that there are no homerooms. She always hated homeroom. Her schedule looks pretty standard; Honors English, Honors World History, Honors Biology, Honors Algebra II, American Sign Language III, Photography and a period for study hall in the second half of the day.

Lexa maneuvers her way through the halls, which are still filled with people as there are still another ten minutes before classes actually begin, but Lexa thinks it might be good to get to herself to class early; it wouldn’t be a very good idea to be late to her first class. Plus, she still has to find the class to begin with. The school has several main hallways, each one dedicated to a specific subject and each one with different color lockers, which Lexa thinks will help her keep everything in order. Lexa makes her way to the english hallway and finds her classroom midway down the hall. As she steps in, the teacher is at the whiteboard writing something down for class and the few kids who are in the classroom already turn to look at her. Being the new kid in a small school where everyone has known each other for the last 10 years is going to be a bit of a nuisance for Lexa. At least she knows she looks amazing and her effort this morning certainly won’t go to waste.

She takes a seat near the door which will allow her to get out fast at the end of class to find the next one. She hopes she doesn’t accidentally steal someone’s seat and God forbid there be actual assigned seats. It really irks her when teachers assign seats in high school, treating them like infants. The classroom slowly starts to fill up, and thus begins an entirely noneventful day. People look at her, clearly wondering who she is, but no one tries to talk to her and thankfully, none of the teachers try to introduce her to the entire class.

It’s not that hard to catch up on the work she has missed in the last week since most of the teachers were simply going over their syllabi and handing out whatever books they’d need for the year. By the end of the day, Lexa’s noticed a few things. The first is that this year is going to be a breeze if the pile of syllabi are anything to go off of. The second is that English, ASL, Photography, Biology, and Algebra are going to be her favorite classes. The third is that there is a beautiful blonde girl in her soon-to-be favorite classes who she can’t keep her eyes off, and who apparently can’t keep her eyes off of Lexa either.

Anya doesn’t get out of work until 4:00, so Lexa decides to hang around outside after the bell rings at 2:30. She thinks it’s a pretty big waste of her time, but she has several books with her, as always, so she decides to just sit in the grass and read while the sun beats down. As she reads, her hand idly plays with the grass beside her, long and soft. The book she takes out is her absolute favorite, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. It’s a soft cover copy that she’s read many times, littered with pen markings, notes in the margins, underlined and bracketed phrases, connections within the book, between books, and with her own life. The cover is bent and one time she spilled a light-colored fruit punch on it and some of the pages are warped and just barely tinted pink. Lexa was devastated when it happened, but now she thinks it adds a little more character to her book. On a shelf at home, she has another copy of the book in hardcover waiting to be used if she ever decides she can get herself to read it.

As four o'clock grows nearer, Lexa begins to feel restless, her mind filling with things she wants to put down on paper and simultaneously feeling like she should be doing something instead of sitting and reading or writing. These things happen every once in a while and they frustrate Lexa to no end because she usually can't find a way to satisfy the feeling. Well, someone somewhere in the universe was looking out for Lexa. She hadn't noticed the people playing frisbee out on the field nearby until the frisbee landed within what Lexa liked to call her Bubble of Peace. The Bubble of Peace is sacred. When inside the Bubble of Peace, Lexa is not to be disturbed unless it is a life or death situation. And yet, here comes a frisbee to interrupt the Bubble of Peace she had surrounded herself with. The frisbee is clear plastic and has what looks to be a purple rubber ring around the edges for gripping.

"Oh shoot, Octavia! You nearly hit someone!" Lexa nearly chokes on her own spit when she notices the gorgeous blonde from her classes running toward her, presumably to get the frisbee which landed several feet from Lexa. Only slightly out of breath the girl apologized profusely. "I. Am so so sorry. Octavia, she can be a real. Idiot sometimes. But you gotta love her, it's the rule. Blakes have irresistible charm," she says with a breathy laugh and a glowing smile.

"It's alright--no harm no foul," Lexa says when she realizes she should probably say something instead of staring at the girl's lips. Lexa’s cheeks are burning and she can feel it in her ears.

“I’m Clarke, by the way. Clarke Griffin,” the pretty girl tells her.

“Lexa Woods, nice to meet you,” Lexa says with a small wave and a smile.

“You’re new here, right?”

“Yes I uh, just moved here over the summer. My paper work didn’t get finished on time so I had to start a week late. Schools and their regulations,” Lexa shares with a shrug and she starts to feel like maybe that was too much information for a first introduction. Whatever.

It’s silent for a few moments before Clarke asks, “Would you like to play with us? I mean I figure offering is the least I could do since someone nearly hit you with a frisbee.”

Lexa takes a moment to think about it; everything about this situation is weird for her. Lexa used to hear people say she was too bristly and she could acknowledge that she preferred to be alone in most situations. But, for some reason unknown to her, Lexa says, “Sure, why not.” And the first why not was that her ride would be showing up soon anyways, in the next half hour or so. And the other why not was that this would be a catalyst to a whole lot of change, and Lexa was never good with change.

Lexa has never been a huge fan of sports, despite the fact that she’s actually pretty good at them. She just prefers to spend her time doing more solitary, calm things. But now here she is being introduced to one Octavia Blake and her brother, Bellamy. Past saying “hello” and “nice to meet you,” the four of them spread out into a rough square shape. Lexa notices the other three tend to use advanced throws, not just the standard backhand, so she takes her own turn throwing fronthand and under-the-leg tosses. Bellamy whistles when she throws the disk under her leg and Octavia makes a whooping noise; Clarke simply makes a “not bad” face.

Half an hour later, Lexa can see Anya pulling up out in front of the school. “My ride is here, guys,” Lexa says as she picks up her backpack from the ground.

Clarke tosses the disk back to Octavia, pointing her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of Lexa. Octavia just nods and gives a thumbs up before passing the disk to Bellamy. “I’ll walk you to the car, if that’s alright with you?” Clarke asks with a blinding smile.

“Yes, of course,” Lexa confirms with a nod of her head. “Thank you for inviting me to play with you.”

“Any time! And I mean that. You’re very good, Lexa, you should try out for the school’s team,” Clarke tells her.

Lexa blushes a little at the compliment, “I’m not much for teams sports.”

“Well, in any case, I’d love if we could play again sometime. Maybe we can hang out..?” Clarke says and Lexa can hear the hopeful tone in her voice.

“Yeah, I would like that…”

“Ah, great! Well, here we are…Bye, Lexa, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Of course, Clarke,” Lexa says with a genuine smile.

Clarke turns and jogs back to her friends, looking over her shoulder once at Lexa and waving to her. Lexa opens the door to the car and sits in the front seat, “So who’s the girl?” Anya teases right off the bat.

“Her name is Clarke—she’s uh, she’s in most of my classes actually and she invited me to play frisbee with her and her friends after Octavia nearly hit me with the frisbee.”

Anya coos at her, “Aw look at my little Munchkin making friends on the first day!” Lexa juts back as she sees Anya’s hand coming at her, presumably to muss up her hair.

“Anya, please, I am not a child and I’m not little! And don’t you dare mess up my hair!” Lexa tells her.

“Fine fine, relax, Lex.” Lexa just huffs out a puff of air as they pull away from the curb. “So how does take out sound? I was thinking some Thai for dinner?”

Lexa nods along, “Yeah, Thai sounds good.”

Twenty minutes later, Anya is pulling the car into the driveway and Lexa’s got a steaming paper bag filled with delicious-smelling food sitting on her lap. The bag crinkles as she kicks the car door open to get out. “An, can you grab my backpack, please? My hands are full.” In truth, she probably could manage to grab her backpack as well, but this darn paper bag has no handles and the food inside is precious cargo, too precious to risk dropping.

“Yeah I got you.” Lexa approaches the door and skillfully finagles the house keys out of her pocket and into the door. She twists the knob just enough to push it open an inch before nudging it open the rest of the way with her food. She walks through the house to the kitchen where she promptly drops the bag on the table. “Where do you want your backpack?”

“Just leave it on the couch! I’ll bring it upstairs later!” Lexa responds as she pulls each of the food containers out of the bag. They may have gone a little overboard with the food, but at least there will be leftovers for late night snacks and dinner the next day. Lexa moves to the cabinet to pull out two paper plates, silverware, and serving utensils and places them on the table as well.

When Anya comes into the kitchen, Lexa huffs a laugh at her shirt, “Nice shirt, An.” Anya merely grumbles in response, which has Lexa smirking. It’s one of Anya’s favorite shirts, an old one she had won in a beer drinking competition back in her college days. The shirt is a little worn out, threadbare in places with a few holes, but Anya loves how soft it is. Plus, it may be a point of pride in her college self as well. Lexa likes to joke that Anya’s left her glory days behind in the bottom of a glass, but of course they both know that’s a lie. Anya has a professional career now and she’s getting better all the time.

“How was your first day?” Anya asks as they walk to the couch with their plates piled high.

“Boring. Honestly, Clarke has been the most exciting part of my day and that was only half an hour in the day,” Lexa says with a sigh. Anya waggles her eyebrows at Lexa who rolls her eyes. “Oh come on, it isn’t like that. Well, not yet. She’s cute, but we don’t even know each other.”

“Well, there’s time to fix that, Munchkin.”

As the weeks continue, Clarke and Lexa begin to see a lot more of each other. Of course, the Blake siblings are always there, and Lexa maybe resists the friendship Clarke and the Blake siblings offer her at first because that’s just who she is, but it doesn’t last long. It really can’t last when all Lexa wants is to know everything about one Clarke Griffin and both Blakes are truly irresistibly charming just as Clarke had said. Lexa has spent many years feeling alone; she doesn’t let people in because when she lets people in, they hurt her. People leave as quick as they come and the pain? Well, she never quite manages to escape from that.

On Lexa’s third day of classes, Clarke starts sitting next to her in a couple of their classes together. Lexa mostly just tries to ignore the blonde, giving her tight lipped smiles. She thinks she successfully filled her quota of human interaction for the next year when she played frisbee with Clarke and her friends and that’s more than enough for her.

Of course, Clarke is persistent and upgrades from sitting next to her in a couple of their classes to sitting with her in all of their classes together by the middle of the third week. Furthermore, Clarke drags Bellamy and Octavia to sit with Lexa at lunch and mostly, they just talk to each other while Lexa sits and not-so-secretly listens in on their conversations.

“Okay, but, O, you can come on a little strong sometimes…” Bellamy says.

Lexa can practically see the steam coming out of Octavia’s ears when she nearly shouts, “What the hell is that supposed to mean, Bell? I stand up for myself and I get what I want. Since when is that a bad thing?”

Bellamy backtracks, “Well no, I mean, it isn’t a bad thing but sometimes guys can find that…intimidating.”

Octavia doesn’t even dignify that with a response other than a derisive scoff. Meanwhile, Lexa hears Clarke muttering under her breath, “Fragile masculinity,” which has Lexa nearly choking on her food, covering her mouth to try and hide the fact that she’s laughing. Because it’s true, really, how fragile masculinity is. This marks the end of Lexa’s ability to ignore the three people who seem to want everything to do with her, for reasons unbeknownst to her.

Lexa stops ignoring Clarke in class, though she doesn’t exactly shower her with attention either. Well, not outwardly anyways. Lexa would be lying if she said that she was not thinking about her budding relationships with Clarke and the Blake siblings, though especially Clarke. Clarke notices that Lexa tends to not pay attention in English, which is understandable because their teacher is rather simple, even if she is fun to mess with. If Lexa paid attention, she might have noticed the way the young teacher blushes anytime one of the students says something to her, she might have snickered along with Clarke at their classmates’ antics.

Instead, Lexa was usually thoroughly buried in a book of some sort, whether it’s the actual assigned reading, which Clarke realizes Lexa always finishes way before it’s actually due, or one of the many books Lexa has stuffed away in her backpack. Sometimes, Clarke will catch Lexa writing out full paragraphs in the margins of her notebook or in books themselves. Clarke is curious, of course, and tries to sneak a glance, but Lexa seriously has the teensiest handwriting Clarke has ever seen and she’d have to stick her face right into her paper to read it. And Clarke isn’t trying to be that creepy, honestly.

Sometimes, Lexa will be entirely absorbed in whatever it is that she’s writing on her papers or reading under her desk so the teacher doesn’t see and Clarke just—watches her because seeing Lexa in her element is unlike anything else. But there are times when Clarke simply can’t resist breaking Lexa’s little bubble of concentration, so she will poke Lexa’s leg or her arm and Lexa will turn to her, tucking her hair behind her ear with bright eyes and a light smile, which Clarke returns in kind, her own heart feeling a just a smidge lighter at the sight.

They’re two and a half months into school, it’s midway through November and things between Clarke and Lexa have continued on in much the same way. Occasionally, they would discretely pass notes in class and sometimes, Lexa would join Clarke, Octavia, and Bellamy for some frisbee or soccer briefly after school. At lunch, Lexa is still fairly quiet, but she actively listens and laughs at their jokes and sometimes gives in her own input. It takes a little while for Lexa to warm up to people, to feel comfortable enough around them to speak carelessly, and she tends to be better with one-on-one interaction than group interactions.

But, two and a half months into school something changes, and they can thank their photography class for that. The photography assignment is simply titled “Strangers” and the word is written in big bubble letters up on the whiteboard at the front of the room. Miss Cartwig explains that the assignment is simply to take pictures of strangers, especially interesting strangers. The class has two weeks to fill up a 36-frame roll with the faces of strangers. With their permission of course.

At the end of class, Clarke turns to Lexa to ask, “So, I know we’re not exactly strangers, but I feel like I still don’t really know all that much about you. Will you be one of my strangers?”

Clarke’s cheeks are tinged just slightly pink and Lexa smiles, “Only if you will be one of mine.” And oh, Clarke positively beams at that and for just a moment, Lexa thinks a puzzle piece settled into place, a piece which has made the whole world right again. If a smile can save a life, this smile could save hundreds.

They arrange a time at the end of the week, Friday after school, and Clarke tells Lexa with a playful nudge, “Just wear what you normally wear, no need to out-do yourself and rent a tuxedo.” Lexa doesn’t tell Clarke she actually owns a tux, courtesy of her father, and instead just says that Clarke can wear whatever she wants, leaving out that Clarke looks beautiful no matter what she wears.

Lexa woke up early in the morning Friday to make sure she had on the right outfit for a photo. The photos will be in black and white so she went high contrast with a sharp white button down, tailored black pants, black and white oxford shoes, black suspenders, a black leather belt, and, of course, a thin black tie finished in an Eldredge knot. She leaves her hair down around her shoulders and puts in contacts.

Little does she know that across town, Clarke is worrying about what to wear herself. She wants to wear a dress, but at the same time it’s the middle of November and while it isn’t exactly freezing, it certainly isn’t very warm out. Instead, she pulls out her favorite pair of pale skinny jeans with tattered tears in every direction and a black shirt with the words “Make Art Not War” written across it in white letters. The school has ridiculous policies about spaghetti straps, so she’ll just try and keep it from sliding down her shoulder throughout the day, then leave it down for the photo. The aesthetic is just wrong otherwise. She snags a white beanie and white Keds to complete the outfit. She adjusts her hair one last time before heading out the door to meet her dad, who’s already holding her backpack out for her.

“So why did I need to pick up these very specific flowers at 8 o’clock last night?” her dad asks her with a playful tone.

Clarke reaches over to grab the flowers from him as well as her backpack before getting into the front seat, “They’re a prop for a photo project I gotta do this afternoon.” Clarke can feel her cheeks burning just a tad and oh, does Jake Griffin know how to read his daughter like a book. There is clearly something else going on here, but he won’t push her on it; Clarke will tell him when he’s ready and he accepts that. Clarke changes directions, “Can I have a couple friends over tonight?” Jake says yes, like always, and tells Clarke she doesn’t need to ask on a Friday night.

By the end of the day, both Lexa and Clarke are bundles of nerves, which is silly of course, because it’s just a photo and they’re kinda sorta friends now, right? The two girls meet outside the library after school after they’ve both grabbed their things from their lockers. “Where did you want to set up, Clarke?” Lexa asks, gesturing toward the tripod Clarke’s holding in one hand.

Clarke blows a puff of air into her cheeks then releases it, “Well, I was thinking maybe we could, uh, maybe just go out to the front of the school? I think the natural light would just look really…” Clarke trails off but Lexa is nodding along and agreeing anyways.

They throw their things down onto the grass and Lexa asks, “Which of us will go first?”

“I mean, I’ve got something I gotta set up for yours, so you can take my picture first if you want?” Lexa nods with a small smile. “Where do you want me, Lex?”

Clarke swears she heard Lexa’s neck crack at the speed she whipped her head to look at Clarke following the nickname. Only Anya’s ever called her Lex. She clears her throat and just instructs, “If you could sit under the tree that would be great.” Clarke does as she’s told and watches as Lexa pulls out her Canon AE-1 SLR camera and fiddles with the settings for a moment before turning to Clarke, “Actually, would you mind helping with the f-stop and shutter speed? My first roll—it did not turn out so well and I am not entirely positive what I did wrong…” Clarke waves Lexa over to the bench with a warm smile, clearly happy to help. Lexa sits beside Clarke and watches as she looks through the viewfinder and sets the aperture, then as she adjusts the shutter speed, explaining that it’s a sunny day so she should use a higher f-stop and a higher shutter speed. When Clarke hands the camera back, their fingers just barely touch and it has Lexa furiously blushing and rushing away from the bench to take the picture.

Lexa cranks back the lever which advances the film, lifts the camera to her face to look through the viewfinder, stops breathing for just a moment because Clarke is something else really. Too beautiful with a dazzling smile. She pushes down on the shutter release, the shutter audibly opening then closing once more. “Can I—would you mind just looking off to your right and up just a touch?” Clarke moves to appease Lexa’s request. “Thank you.” Lexa takes a few more photos just to make sure that she gets a good one. “All set,” Lexa tells Clarke with a smile.

“Great! I’ve got something I need to make for you…” Clarke says as she walks over to her backpack and rummages around in it. Lexa tilts her head in curiosity when Clarke pulls out a bouquet of bright white flowers. Instead of walking back to the bench, Clarke just takes a seat where she was standing. After a few moments of pulling the flowers from their plastic sleeve, Clarke looks back and calls, “Well are you coming over or are you just gonna leave me all by my lonesome?” And of course Clarke has to make the most ridiculously cute pouty face and Lexa knows she doesn’t stand a chance in hell of ever refusing this girl.

Lexa makes her way over and sits a respectable distance away from Clarke, leaving at least a foot and a half between their knees. That is, until Clarke is saying, “Scoot closer, I need to make sure this will fit.” Lexa’s brow furrows but she complies. “It’s gonna be a flower crown. The lisianthus combined with the elderflowers is just gonna be great and your outfit is just perfect for this,” Clarke tells Lexa in an excited rush.

As Clarke weaves and ties the stems of the flowers together, Lexa toys with one of the extra lisianthus, running her fingers along the soft petals, contemplating plucking a couple off to rub between her fingers. Lexa lifts the flower to smell it, but finds that it actually has no scent at all. She thinks the flowers are nice; she absolutely hates white lilies. Nothing good ever came with white lilies, not their overpowering scent nor the circumstances for which Lexa had seen them us—she nearly jumps when she feels something being placed on her head and quickly turns to find Clarke placing a nearly complete crown on her head, “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you!” she apologizes with a light chuckle.

“No, sorry, I was spacing out a bit,” Lexa blushes as Clarke arranges the flowers over her hair.

“You’re awful quiet, y’know that?”

“So I’ve been told,” Lexa mutters lightly.

Clarke removes the crown, “Just needs a couple more… I like it though.”

“You like what?”

Clarke turns to look at Lexa with a sweet smile, “You, your quietness. It’s endearing.”

“Give it time. In fact, my sister would probably have a few choice words regarding my quietness at home…” Lexa trails off with a huff of a laugh.

“Well, I look forward to seeing the unquiet you as well aaand—done!” Clarke turns toward Lexa with a proud smile on her face, holding the finished crown in front of her as if it were delicately foiled with gold leaf.

“It is quite lovely, Clarke.” The blonde simply beams back and Lexa resolves to make seeing that smile a daily goal from this moment on out. Clarke gestures for Lexa to come closer and she tinkers with her hair, smoothing it out and pulling the ends forward over Lexa’s shoulders before putting the crown on her head.

Clarke sighs with a half-dreamy look in her eyes, “You look amazing, Lex.”

“Th-thank you… Shall we?” Clarke nods with a big smile and Lexa swears her eyes honestly sparkle like the stars. “Where—um, where do you want me?”

“Against the brick wall—I mean—that came out wrong. Just—just stand in front of the wall,” Clarke stammers out, a blush creeping up to her cheeks which has Lexa smiling. Clarke drags the tripod over and sets it down around ten feet away from Lexa. She bends to look into the view finder, adjusts the aperture and shutter settings, the angle of the camera before mustering up all the confidence she can to give Lexa some instructions, “Put your hands in your pockets for me? Keep your thumbs out.”

“You know this feels more like a photoshoot than strangers meeting spontaneously,” Lexa notes with a cocked eyebrow.

“Eh, I’ve got a very—particular vision. Miss Cartwig can deal.” When Clarke looks back through the view finder to take the picture she finds that Lexa apparently is content to leave her snark face on, her eyebrow still firmly in place and a smirk on her lips. Clarke pulls back the film advance and takes the photo. Clarke clears her throat as she stands up, “Can you tilt your head down and to the left?”

“Roger that, Boss.”

Clarke simply scoffs and shakes her head and as she looks through the view finder, she finds Lexa is smiling lightly and has propped one foot up against the wall, hands still shoved into her pockets. She cranks the lever back, snaps the photo before standing once more. Clarke takes two more photos of similar poses, but on the last one Clarke asks, “Would you mind taking off your tie?”

For a moment, Lexa looks totally affronted. Lexa takes a little offense to the idea of ruining her perfect outfit. Not to mention, she worked hard to get this Eldredge knot right this morning. “Uh sure, just give me a moment to mourn the loss of such a beautiful knot,” she laughs. Lexa deftly loosens the knot, pulling down slightly on the knot itself until it’s loose enough that she can just slip it over her head without spending a full minute undoing the intricate knot. Now she feels a little ridiculous with her shirt totally buttoned up, so she just undoes the top two buttons. “Better?”

“Much, thank you,” Clarke says a she crouches back down to take another picture. “I think I’m good on photos.” The two girls smile at each other and spend the rest the next hour before Lexa’s ride arrives talking idly about their classes.

Three weeks later finds Clarke and Lexa in the dark room. They developed their films the class before and all of Clarke’s frames came out well, but a few of Lexa’s didn’t develop as she hoped. Despite the fact that Lexa wasn’t particularly good at getting the photographs right, developing the pictures in the dark room was by far Lexa’s favorite part.

The dark room is small and, well, dark. There is a dark black curtain which partitions a small area of the door off from the rest of the room to keep the light from the hallway out. Inside, there is a deep red light on one wall and the walls are all painted black. There are two film projectors and two large basins, the first of which has three different tubs with different chemicals to develop photos, the second of which is just filled with constantly filtering water and developed photos.

Only two people at a time are allowed in the dark room, primarily because it can be hard to keep track of who is coming and going and of course, because there are only two projector machines. While the other 19 people in their class work on other assignments, including Photoshop projects, Clarke and Lexa finally have a turn in the dark room since the first assignment.

Of all the strangers’ pictures Clarke and Lexa took, the only strangers’ pictures they really wanted to actually develop, to hold in person, were the pictures of each other. The other pictures were cool too and Clarke managed to get some pictures of pretty cool, interesting people, but the pictures with Lexa just felt so much more dynamic. And honestly, Lexa just was not a huge fan of most of the pictures she took.

The two girls have the entire class period to develop photos, and it really doesn’t take that long to develop a photo. It’s a pretty simple process, it just has many steps. Pick which frame you want, slide your negative film into the carrier slot of the projector, turn on the projector light and adjust the size to fit the canvas frame, focus the picture, turn off the light, grab your photo paper, make sure it is squared off with a right-angle ruler, clip the photo paper into the frame, double check everything, turn the light on for however many seconds needed according to your initial test strip. Then, into the developer the photo goes for one and a half minutes, then into the stop bath to stop the development for another minute and a half, then into the fixer for 5 minutes, agitating continuously for the first two, then for just a minute in the last. Then, the photo gets placed into a water bath, which Miss Cartwig will take out at the end of the day to hang dry. It’s a complicated process but not a hard one.

Both girls are standing at the first basin, Clarke is developing her photo while Lexa is agitating hers in the stop bath. “I must admit, I am pretty excited to see how these turn out,” Lexa says, turning her head to Clarke. Lexa can hardly see Clarke; she mostly just looks like a dark silhouette with more shadows barely defining key features. “Two weeks is too long to wait.”

“Definitely have to agree with you there. I would have been happy to just take my five pictures of you and leave it at that. I mean, the coolest stranger I found was someone who was walking their dog in a park. And even then, I just wanted a picture of the dog!” Clarke laughs.

“Understandable. Dogs are often nicer than humans.”

“Agreed.” Some time passes in comfortable silence, the two girls moving around the dark room, seemingly in sync with one another, occasionally brushing gently against each other’s shoulders. After around ten minutes of silently developing photos, Clarke speaks up. “Lex?”

“Yes?” Clarke hears from somewhere behind her.

“Well I was thinking about having a movie night tonight at my house… would you like to come?” Then she rushes to add, “I’ll be asking O if she wants to come, too.”

Clarke’s scratching behind her neck and Lexa can’t help but find her nervousness just a tad endearing. “Sure. What time?”

“Mm, six? How does six sound? We’ll have dinner and you can stay over if you want?”

“That sounds lovely, Clarke, thank you,” Lexa says with a smile. Though, inside, Lexa is freaking out just a little; the unknown has Lexa a little nervous.

The moment Lexa takes her seat in the car beside Anya and shuts her door she exhales loudly and says with wide eyes, “An, I have a problem.”

“Tell me something I don’t know, Lex,” Anya replies with a shit-eating grin, putting the car in gear.

“Okay, rude, I’m not even going to tell you now!” Lexa says, crossing her arms and staring dramatically out the passenger door window. For a good minute, Lexa just watches the empty trees passing outside trying not to think about all the ways tonight could go horribly, ignoring her sister’s attempts to get her attention.

“Oh come on you know you’re perfect! Tell me what’s going on! Please?” Anya literally pouts, dragging out the “please” for a good while.

Lexa rolls her eyes. “Fine. Clarke invited me over to hang out with her and Octavia tonight. And I said yes. And it is not just any hanging out, no—it’s a sleep over! What the hell am I supposed to do?” Lexa sighs loudly.

“Okay just chill, Lex, it’s fine if Octavia’s there then there is nothing to worry about! I’m sure she will be a great buffer from what you’ve told me! Anyways, you’re cool, just go with the flow.”

Lexa scoffs, “Okay, An, but consider this: when have I ever gone with the flow? And since when have I been cool?”

“Fair point. But! It will be fine and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll give you fifty dollars for instilling a false sense of hope. Deal?”

Lexa huffs, “Deal.”

Lexa has just under two hours to prepare herself for the night. “Anya? What do you bring to a sleep over?” Lexa shouts down the stairs.

“Uh, clothes and a tooth brush might be a good start?” Anya says with a laugh.

Lexa nearly face-palms and gasps, “Toothbrush! Oh my God!” She frantically runs to the bathroom to grab her toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss and hastily throws them onto the bed; she needs a bag for them still. She’s already got an idea of what she wants to bring for clothing. For pajamas, she packs a pair of blue plaid boxers, baggy gray sweatpants, and a plain white t-shirt that’s a size too big; for the next day she packs a pair of stretchy black skinny jeans and a long-sleeve gray shirt. She packs a cardigan as well in case it is chilly.

With most of her things packed, Lexa decides it might be good to take a shower before heading over to Clarke’s; she always feels a little gross coming home from school. She spends a little extra time in the shower just to make sure she’s really clean, and also because she has just a little too much time to kill before she will be leaving for Clarke’s. When she gets out, she lets her hair dry on its own, resulting in somewhat frizzy, wavy hair. She decides to just pull on a pair of gray dress pants and a light blue button-down with lavender bow tie with small white polka dots. Her belt and shoes are black, but she’s foregoing the suspenders tonight.

Lexa still has a half hour to kill before she has to leave so she flops down on the bed and lets out a long breath. She doesn’t know exactly why she’s so nervous, but she thinks it might have something to do with the fact that when Octavia’s around, she feels like she needs to be funny all the time. That’s not to say Octavia isn’t a good friend, but Lexa feels like she can be real with Clarke. She’s never had a friend like Clarke. Hell, she hasn’t had many friends at all.

Lexa knows this train of thought isn’t getting her anywhere and with twenty-five minutes to sit through, she brings a backpack stuffed to the brim with clothing down the stairs and tosses it by the door, next to her shoes to make sure she won’t forget it. “How is work going, An?”

Anya had a big project at work, trying to make a huge sales pitch for a new account. Anya works for their mother and father’s company, Woods & Trikru, which specializes in aerospace engineering and aerial products, ranging from commercial airplanes to military grade helicopters. Anya has been working on a pitch for a major airline for no less than three months, and in just a couple months more, she will finally give her pitch to United Airlines. Their father had always wanted both Anya and Lexa to get involved with the business, to take it over when he retires, and while Lexa has never been interested, Anya truly has a magic touch when it comes to sales. Not that she really needs the job, though, because their father always made sure to work extra hard to pay for everything his girls could ever want.

Anya blows out a breath loudly through her mouth, her eyes widening minutely, “This morning, I submitted the terms I’ll be presenting to United, along with the presentation I made for the proposal. We’ve already met with them once before to discuss a few minor things, just to set a baseline for what we will all be expecting. My reports have been compiled and copied ad nauseam, enough for every potential board member for Woods & Trikru as well as United. Finally in that final stretch, just gotta practice my speech, check over the preliminary paperwork, and get United on our client list. No biggie, yeah?”

“You know, that may be the understatement of the year, An, congratulations!” Anya scoffs and rolls her eyes, “But really, you are so close to done, we both know you have this on lock. If anyone can get United on board, it would undoubtedly be you.”

“Thanks for the ego boost, kid,” Anya smirks and Lexa sees her hand lift up to scruff her hair and she quickly shifts away with a small glare.

Anya puts on a big pout and Lexa just whines, “Oh come on don’t do that! Fine, but be careful, I just brushed it.”

Anya musses Lexa’s hair with a big smile on her face; Lexa just goes right to fixing her hair again once Anya stops. “So what are you three going to be doing tonight?”

“I am not so sure. Clarke said it was going to be a movie night, but she said I could sleep over and have dinner with them too, so I imagine there will be more to it than just a movie? But I really don’t know.”

Lexa’s leg is bouncing as she struggles to remain in place on the couch, getting more anxious to leave, watching the minutes tick by on a digital clock. There are still ten minutes before they need to leave. Anya places her hand on Lexa’s leg. “Okay, Lex, you need to loosen up a little. It’s going to be fine.”

“I can’t remember the last time I slept over someone’s house, let alone someone—someone like Clarke Griffin.”

“You’ll be fine, Lex. I promise, if you aren’t having a good time, you can call me at any time and I’ll just come pick you up, okay?” Lexa nods, biting her lip. Anya pats Lexa’s knee and stands up, “How about we just go and arrive early, mm?”

“Is that rude? I don’t want to arrive before they can prepare.”

Anya can still see the worry clear in Lexa’s face. “I just think you’ll feel better if we can get this show on the road. Sitting around doing nothing isn’t doing you any good.” Lexa still looks apprehensive and Anya sighs, “I’ll drive slow?” Lexa nods, grabs her bag and heads out the door to the car.

All throughout the car ride, Lexa is biting her lip, wringing her hands a little in her lap, glancing at the clock every minute. Anya pulls off the main road into a very well-kept neighborhood. The house is—well, it’s huge. Really huge. It’s painted white and has stone accent walls on the outside and Lexa wonders if the inside will be as outrageously magnificent as the outside. Of course, the house Anya and Lexa share is very nice and certainly more than large enough for two people, but Anya doesn’t like asking her father for money, especially considering she already gets paid by his company. Lexa takes a deep breath before turning to smile at Anya, “Thanks for the ride, An. ”

“Any time. And remember, you can call me if you need me,” Anya tells her with a smile. Lexa nods and exits the car. Lexa barely hears the car pull away and tries to muster up some courage to make a good impression with Clarke’s parents and not seem bizarre to Clarke and Octavia.

She walks slowly to the door, her backpack slung over her right shoulder, her left hand shoved into her pocket, fiddling with the loose strings that sit in the corner. She stands at the door, which is really two huge wood doors with glass panels, and waits just a moment before ringing the doorbell. Inside the house Lexa hears a shout that sounds not unlike someone is yelling for Clarke. The door on the right side opens and Clarke’s face is bright with an enthusiastic welcoming smile, “Lexaaa! Come in!” Clarke is excitedly grabbing Lexa’s right hand and dragging her through the doorway. “Mom! Dad! Lexa’s here!” Clarke shouts. She turns to look at Lexa, still pulling her through the house, “I hope this isn’t a deal-breaker but I guess something came up and O couldn’t make it tonight so it’ll just be you and me!”

Lexa smiles at her and God Clarke sounds so excited still, there is only one possible response: “Of course!” But on the inside, Lexa is feeling herself heading a bit further into panic mode now that she knows her buffer won’t be there. She doesn’t have much time to dwell on it, however, because she is being dragged into the kitchen where two people are standing at the counters.

“Mom, Dad, this is Lexa! Lexa, this is—well, Mom and Dad!” Clarke chuckles lowly to herself.

Clarke’s mom sticks her hand out first after wiping her hand on a dish towel, “Hello, dear, nice to meet you,” she says with a warm smile. “You can just call me Abby—it’s a bit soon to be calling me ‘Mom,’ don’t you think, Clarke?” Clarke just shrugs.

Lexa shakes her hand and smiles, “Perhaps. Lovely to meet you, Abby.”

Clarke’s father is next and he just laughs, “You can call me Jake, or Dad if you really wanted to.”

Lexa feels her own face wrinkling up around her eyes; she likes these people, “Nice to make your acquaintance, Jake.”

“Geez, Lex no need to be so formal. I think your outfit alone tells us how serious and professional you are,” Clarke jokes, nudging Lexa’s shoulder.

Lexa blushes and ducks her head for a moment before looking at each of the people in front of her, “Is this too much?”

“You look awesome! I’m just messing with you.” Clarke turns to her parents and quips, “Can you believe she dresses like this every day? And hey, you actually changed your whole outfit!”

“I’m certainly impressed—I can barely get myself out of bed in the morning to put on the same suit I wear every day!” Jake laughs as he begins to turn around to continue tossing a salad.

Abby counters, “I’ve got it easy—just throw on a pair of scrubs and good to go!” She is stirring a pot on the stove and the kitchen smells amazing. “I hope you’re good with pasta, Lexa, because we’ve got heaps tonight!”

“Always. Who isn’t okay with pasta?”

Jake turns to face them briefly with a smile on his face, “I like this one Clarkey,” he says, using his tongs to point at Lexa.

Lexa blushes but then realizes Jake had said “Clarkey” which makes Lexa giggle and murmur to Clarke, “Clarkey? That’s cute…”

Clarke merely groans before suggesting, “Come on, let’s set the table.”

Clarke and Lexa waited at the table while Abby and Jake continued bustling around the kitchen. Clarke stands and asks, “Want anything to drink? Weee’ve got cranberry juice, orange juice, ginger ale, like twenty different types of seltzer aaand of course water.”

“Water would be excellent, thank you.” Clarke nods and walks to the fridge to pull out a pitcher that filters water and gets two cut crystal glasses from the cabinet to pour some water into. She comes back and places one cup in front of Lexa and one in front of herself. They are seated again so that Lexa is at one end of the table and Clarke is on her right. When the food is done, Abby walks over holding a massive pot of angel hair pasta coated in a thin layer of sauce and Jake is holding another set of tongs. They serve Lexa first, two heaps of pasta on a large plate, and once everyone’s plate has a large serving of pasta on it, they come back around with the salad bowl, filling her bowl with salad and offering her several different dressings. She ultimately chooses the raspberry vinaigrette.

“Excellent choice with the raspberry vinaigrette, Lexa,” Jake says, “My wife and my daughter are caesar snobs and refuse to accept the purity that is raspberry vinaigrette.”

“It’s too zippy, Dad,” Clarke grimaces. Abby nods along, making a thoroughly disgusted face.

“I am inclined to disagree, Clarke. Sure it has some tang, but it is counterbalanced by the sweet of the raspberries. Plus, it tastes good on every combination of salad ingredients,” Lexa refutes.

“See! It’s not just me! Did I already say I like her? Hell, even if I have, I will say it again: I like this girl, Clarke, she’s a keeper!” The implication of that statement makes both girls flush red and avoid each others’ eyes. The girls may be blind to how they feel for each other, but Abby and Jake had been hearing about Clarke’s new friend for weeks, Lexa this and Lexa that, but Clarke’s excitement made it hard to be annoyed at constantly hearing about her. Abby tries to keep her snickering to herself and gestures for Jake to cut it out before telling the girls to dig in.

Dinner is quiet aside from occasional questions regarding their days. There is no interrogation and their conversation sounds casual, normal. Throughout dinner, Lexa has the strangest feeling as she is treated not as an observer, but almost as if she is a part of the family. Now, of course, Lexa knew that is too far to take this, but Clarke’s family makes her feel included, naturally. Lexa never thought a family dinner could feel quite so good. Spending time with Anya is always nice, but Anya’s still her sister despite having to take on more of a caretaker role as time has gone on. It’s different when it feels like there are parents who care for you.

After dinner, Lexa insists on handling the dishes, rinsing them all and putting them in the dishwasher, per Abby’s insistence to make the job go faster. “And there you go making me look bad, huh, Lex?” Clarke says, approaching Lexa from the side.

“Well, you see, it would not make you look bad if you just came over and helped me out instead of watching,” Lexa shoots back with a smirk.

“No need to be a smartass!” Clarke does help and her parents move into the living room to watch something together. When they’re done Clarke shouts, “We’re going up to my room!”

She hears her mom yell back, “Have fun, honey! Don’t watch any scary movies!”

“Are you afraid of horror movies?” Lexa asks walking up the stairs behind Clarke.

“When I was younger I watched Children of the Corn and I had nightmares for a while after that. Ended up running to sleep in my parents bed and I always needed a night light on. I’m not so bad with them anymore, just not a huge fan and Mom won’t let me forget it.”

“I see.” Lexa follows Clarke through the upstairs and eventually they come to a door at the end of the hallway. Clarke’s name is painted on a white door in a pretty cerulean color. Clarke opens the door and Lexa follows her, but stops just inside the door. “Woah,” she breathes out in awe. The walls are simply magnificent. Each wall is painted to represent a season, it seems. Clarke’s queen-sized bed is pushed up against the middle of the right wall, which is painted in a snowy wonderland, complete with snowflakes, snowmen, and gray skies. To the far wall is painted with a springtime scene, a wide open field covered in beautiful flowers of gold, red, purple, and pink. The wall behind Clarke and Lexa displays fall, a green field with a white picket fence and golden-orange trees. Lexa steps further into the room to take a look at the last wall: summer. It is a beach scene, sand at the floor of the wall, water creeping onto its surface, completed by a sunset. Lexa’s sure her jaw must have fallen through to the first floor at this point, “Did you paint this?” Clarke nods her head with a shy smile. “It—this is incredible…so beautiful.”

“I’m happy you think so. My parents weren’t too happy when they found out about it. Of course, then I had only just started on the spring wall and it wasn’t finished so it just looked like a mess, but once I finished the wall, I convinced them to let me just go ahead with the plan. I’ve been considering painting the ceiling, too. A bright blue sky with clouds fading into a starry night,” Clarke tells Lexa dreamily.

“That sounds fantastic, Clarke.” Lexa quietly looks around for a few moments longer and Clarke lets her. Of course, the walls aren’t entirely open; there are some pictures hanging on the walls, some sketches, and the furniture covers up bits and pieces of the wall but still, it’s incredible.

Lexa gets lost a little looking at the sunset, running her hands over the reflections on the water. Behind her, Clarke clears her throat before asking, “So what do you want to watch? I can grab some popcorn if you want some, too.”

Lexa hums, “What, uh, what type of movie are you in the mood for?”

“Would you laugh if I said rom-com?”

“You see, I might have were it not for the fact that rom-coms are my guilty pleasure.”

“Well then I’ve got juuust the thing!” Clarke sits on the bed and pulls open the drawer of the nightstand to rifle through its contents before removing a DVD case and presenting it to Lexa.

“You know, I have been meaning to see that. Anya said it was funny, and that Ashton Kutcher is always a plus. But, uh, would you mind if I change first?”

“Yeah my bathroom is just outside in the hall to the right, can’t miss it!”

Lexa carries her backpack with her into the bathroom and changes quickly into her pajamas, checking her hair in the mirror briefly before going back to Clarke’s room. When she walks in, she finds that Clarke has already settled under the blankets on the right side of the bed, the start screen for “What Happens In Vegas” waiting in the darkened room. “Hey did you want popcorn or anythi…” Clarke’s voice trails off as she takes in Lexa’s appearance. The last thing she expected was for Lexa to appear in her doorway wearing cute-ass sweatpants and a white t-shirt and she thinks it just isn’t fair that one person can look so good and all she can think is How the hell does she manage to look good in everything? And when she hears Lexa say “thank you?” in a quiet, confused voice she realizes she said that out loud. She couldn’t stop her cheeks from blazing pink even if it would save the world.

“Uh, s-sorry I didn’t mean to say that,” Clarke croaked, turning away in the hope that the darkness of the room might cover up her blush.

“Don’t worry, I do dress to impress after all,” Lexa assures, trying to diffuse some of the tension. “And I am good on popcorn for now—I may have eaten a touch too much at dinner,” Lexa grimaces.

Clarke laughs at Lexa’s face, “Yeah Mom’s pasta will do that. It’s almost too good.” Clarke realizes then that Lexa is still awkwardly standing with her bag in her hand in the middle of the room. “Are you going to sit down or..?”

“With you? On the bed?” Lexa bites her lip and Clarke thinks she looks maybe a little nervous.

“Well yeah I’m not gonna make you sit on the floor or something like that, Lex!” Clarke explains with a laugh. Lexa nods and drops her backpack, making her way to the bed to crawl in beside her. It’s a big bed, but it still feels like Lexa is just a little too close to Clarke in this moment; she can even feel Clarke’s warmth under the covers. Clarke presses play on the movie once Lexa stops rustling around under the covers.

Both girls are holding their breath for the first fifteen or so minutes, hyperaware of the other’s presence and hardly paying attention to the movie at all. Eventually, Clarke just rolls her eyes at how ridiculous they’re being and just scoots closer to Lexa until their thighs are touching and their shoulders are pushed together. She thinks she might have heard Lexa quickly suck in a hard breath; she knows her own heart is hammering away like there’re no tomorrow, so she supposes it must just be wishful thinking induced by the rush of adrenaline. What Clarke can’t see is Lexa’s left hand nervously tapping along her thigh, playing with the fabric of her sweatpants.

Halfway through the movie, the room is completely dark, save for the light flashing from the TV. Clarke casually glances over at Lexa, watching the light dancing across Lexa’s skin. Clarke whispers, “Lexa?”

“Hm?” Lexa hums, not looking over yet.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Is something wrong?” Lexa turns now, her brow furrowed, looking over Clarke’s face.

“Well n-no, I’m just curious is all…” Clarke trails off, biting her lip. Lexa’s gaze catches immediately onto that action, but quickly looks back at Clarke’s eyes.

“Alright, but only if I get to ask you questions too.”

“Deal. So I know you live with your sister, but why did you move here to begin with?”

“Oh, yeah, well Father thought it better that I move in with Anya instead of being alone at his house.”

“Alone?” Clarke asks, sounding concerned.

“It’s my turn, remember? How did you meet Bellamy and Octavia?”

“Nothing all that extraordinary. Their mom was a nurse who worked with neuro, so Mom and her were friends and you know how parents love to shove their kids into playgroups whenever possible,” Clarke smiles. “But, you were alone?”

“Yes. What does your dad do?”

“Hey that was such a cop out!”

“Answer my question and then I will expand, Clarke.”

Clarke huffs, “Dad’s a biomedical engineer. To be honest, I’m not really sure what he does exactly…”

“My father is an engineer too, an aerospace engineer though. He is a CEO, a very busy CEO, and he was not home very much, I saw him maybe twice a month, but he is constantly taking trips all around the world. Anya suggested I come live with her and Father agreed it was a good idea. And now, here we are.”

“Well what about your mom?”

Lexa tries to swallow the lump in her throat. “It’s my turn,” she says weakly, barely able to keep from making an unpleasant croaking sound. Lexa clears her throat and asks, “What is your dream for the future?”

“Mom wants me to be a doctor of course, and I want to go to art school. Mom thinks I need a high-powered, high-paying job in order to be happy because I was brought up in a wealthy home, but I think making art, sharing it with others, seeing others happy because of my work, would make me happy. And in the end, y’know, all I want is to just be happy with whatever I choose,” Clarke rambles and Lexa nods along.

Lexa is quiet for a minute, opens her mouth and closes it a couple of times before Clarke cuts in with a nearly inaudible whisper, “I’m sorry, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to…”

Lexa shakes her head at that. It isn’t necessarily that she doesn’t want to tell Clarke, it’s that she doesn’t want to sound weak, because she knows her voice might crack a little and her eyes might start tearing up. “My mom—she died when I was ten. My father was simply crushed, completely destroyed when she—he started taking more jobs out of the country, constantly leaving home and burying himself in work. Even when he did come home, I hardly saw him. He was always locked away in his office—drinking some brown liquid straight from a decanter. He is a good man, he just got more absent as the years went on…”

Clarke doesn’t say anything in response, feeling like their game has come to an abrupt end. Instead, she just snuggles up closer to Lexa, taking her hand in hers and pulling it into her lap and resting her head on Lexa’s shoulder. A few minutes later, Clarke whispers, “You didn’t have to tell me that, you know…”

“You deserve to know. I want you to know.” Clarke squeezes Lexa’s hand.

It’s quiet for the rest of the movie, and when it ends, Clarke gets up slowly, sleepily, and removes the DVD from the player, “Do you want me to put in something else?”

“Can we just listen to music or something? I am not sure I will be able to stay up through another movie, honestly.”

Clarke nods and smiles lightly before jerking her head towards the door, “I’m just gonna go brush my teeth real quick.” Lexa nods and waits for Clarke to leave before rummaging through her backpack sloppily, pulling out its contents in search of her toothbrush and toothpaste. Clarke walks back in a minute or two later and Lexa just waves her toothbrush in the air to signal that she is going to head to the bathroom before walking out.

Clarke hears the bathroom door click shut and she pulls her bra off, pulling it through one of the sleeves of her t-shirt and sighing as she tosses it into the hamper in the corner of the room. As she walks back to the bed, she notices Lexa’s things strewn across the floor surrounding her backpack and something catches her eye. Lying on the carpet is a small stuffed animal, maybe a half-foot in height. It’s a brown rabbit whose fur is pebbled, with some spots completely worn down right to the cloth. Clarke picks up the rabbit and carries it over to the bed to place next to her. She scrolls through the music on her phone briefly before settling on A Fine Frenzy's "Near To You" and putting it on shuffle. Lexa comes in a moment later, shutting off the hallway light on the way, coating the room in darkness aside from a dim, light blue night light which is plugged in by the door. It casts a cool glow on the rest of the room, the winter wall looking particularly blue compared to the rest.

Lexa tosses her toothbrush onto the pile her backpack has morphed into carelessly then pulls off her sweatpants because she can’t stand how caged she feels wearing pants to bed. And when she turns to the bed, she sees it. Her eyes have adjusted to the dim lighting and beside Clarke, Lexa sees one of her most prized possessions. She halts her steps and stares at it a moment. When she looks up, she can make out Clarke's easy smile. "Well are you gonna come back to bed, Lex?"

"Clarke."

"Yes?"

"Why did you take that?" Lexa asks, pointing to the rabbit.

Clarke shrugs, "It's cute and I wanted to ask you about it. Plus I thought you might want it--I mean, why would you bring it if you didn't want it right?" Lexa thinks Clarke actually sounds a little worried at the end there, sounding unsure if her reasoning was solid or the thought appreciated.

"I see," Lexa says as she gets her feet to work again and walks to the bed, picking up the rabbit and placing him on her lap when she sits. She quietly rubs his left ear between her thumb and index finger. "His name is Peter Rabbit."

“Why Peter Rabbit?”

“Well, you must know Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny?” Clarke shakes her head. “Oh. Well it was a staple of my childhood. I used to watch The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny all the time, any time I could get my hands on it. Anya watched with me sometimes, just to humor me, because she was too old to truly enjoy it anymore. Anyways, Mom—she had brought Anya and I to a fair that was in town for a couple weeks, Anya won the rabbit and of course, me being six years old, I demanded that I have it. Instead, Mom won another for and I named it Peter Rabbit, of course. For whatever reason Anya named hers Benjamin Bunny.” Lexa realizes then that she was just rambling on about mundane details of her childhood and turns to face Clarke, who is looking at her with sparkles in her eyes.

“That’s cute, Lex,” Clarke says before she takes Lexa’s hand and scoots down on the bed, effectively pulling Lexa lower with her. They stare up at the ceiling for a few quiet moments. Lexa hadn’t noticed until then, but there are small dots faintly glowing on the ceiling, like stars. “Is hers as worn as yours is?”

“No, Benjamin Bunny mostly sat on a shelf.” Clarke hums in response. She’s playing with Lexa’s fingers with a gentle, ticklish touch that makes Lexa feels nervous and safe at the same time. Lexa turns her head to look at their hands, then to Clarke’s face. Clarke’s eyes are closed and her face is relaxed and Lexa has an indescribably urge to just touch her face. She refrains of course, because that would be weird and inappropriate. Lexa whispers, “Clarke?” Again, the pretty girl beside her merely hums, quieter this time, but flips on her side until she is facing Lexa, their hands loosely touching between them. “You—you’re special. I have never known anyone quite like you. I’ve never had a friend like you before.”

Lexa thinks to herself for a few minutes, trying to figure out the right way to say what she wants to say without coming off too strong. She gets lost in her thoughts and it isn’t until she finally figures out what she wants to say that she realizes Clarke hasn’t responded. In fact, her breathing has become a bit deeper and her hand has stopped fiddling with Lexa’s. Lexa pushes out a long breath, runs her left hand through her hair before turning on her side to face Clarke. When Lexa finally speaks, it’s barely a breath and one can’t even be sure she said anything at all, “I can’t stop wanting to be around you, Clarke, and I don’t know what that means.” She watches Clarke’s face to see if there’s any sign she had actually heard her. There is none. Lexa sighs, closes her eyes, and tries to sleep.

It has been a long day. Well, more like a long night. The sky is glowing orange above Lexa’s head, the city’s lights adding to the smoggy pollution in the sky. Lexa is sitting in the back seat of a cab, her head thrown back to look out the back windshield, her fingers playing idly with the tie around her neck. When the cab pulls up outside her apartment building in Manhattan, she knows she should just kick her shoes off and crawl into bed, but her brain has other plans for her.

Instead, Lexa walks into the building and throws a small smile to the kind woman sitting at the reception desk before making her way to the elevator, taking it all the way up to the top floor. She shares the floor with a young man; he’s quiet and she rarely sees him, and if she does, she nods stiffly at him before simply moving on. They haven’t said more than two words to each other the entire time that she’s lived here, but she sort of prefers it that way.

Lexa fumbles with the keys a little getting them in the door; it happens from time to time when she’s rushing to get herself through the door. Past the first five feet by the door, the floors are mostly carpeted and Lexa doesn’t even bother trying to be quiet; she’s on a mission to get to her office. When she gets to the door, it’s locked, like it always is. It’s a private room for her, in many ways even more private than the bedroom. To this day, she’s the only one who has been in it since she began renting it; she had had a lock installed, per the permission of the building super and she has the only key to the room.

Again Lexa fumbles with the keys and she rolls her eyes at herself; she’s anxious to get things started for the night. She has so many ideas at the moment, floating around her head with nowhere to get out and, oh man, does she need them to get out. The door opens in front of her and she lets out a relieved breath as she walks in. She shuts the door quietly behind her, kicks off her shoes by the door, and walks to sit behind the desk. The room is dark, dimly lit by a small silver lamp on the corner of the desk; the walls are gray and all the furniture is black. There are a few bookshelves lining the walls, a comfortable leather couch on one wall that occasionally doubles as a bed.

Lexa sighs as she sits down in the chair, running her fingers through her hair. She flips up the lid of her Mac and pushes the power button. The low hum of the laptop fan fills the space around Lexa and she finds it calming. But, what would make her feel even more calm is a glass of scotch, neat. She slowly walks over to the small table wedged between two book shelves to the right and picks up a bottle of her favorite Glen Elgin 12-year-old single malt scotch. Like father, like daughter, she thinks to herself with a heavy scoff. She loves her father, she does, but there are some parts of him she never wanted to see in herself and yet, here she is, hiding herself in her office with a nice bottle of scotch, content to ignore the world. At least come tomorrow she will acknowledge the world; her father scarcely had the time.

She sips slowly from the old-fashioned whiskey glass, not in the mood to deal with a headache in the morning. Though she’s been around alcohol all night and she’s honestly surprised she hasn’t gotten drunk by association with the high-rollers who like to sit at the bar and stare at her. She places her glass on a coaster on the desk, which isn’t really necessary but she can’t stand it to be sitting directly on the table. It’s better to be in the habit of using a coaster anyways. Lexa logs into her laptop and opens up a fresh document. At first, she just types out the random words and phrases which have been floating around her head all night.

It's not very productive. She has a novel to work on after all, but this is what’s in her head and if she doesn’t get it out, she won’t be able to do anything else. The thoughts are more intrusive than anything else, like a melody that floats around your mind for hours, but worse. It’s so much worse because these are the notes that make up her life, her memories, the good and the bad. And at this time of night? Scotch in hand? They’re mostly bad. The thoughts and memories make her anxious and sad and they are just about the last thing she wants to think about.

As she continues to type away, she progressively feels less anxious, less sad, and more sleepy. But she can’t stop yet because if she doesn’t make at least one of these random words or phrases into some sort of complete work, she’ll feel especially unproductive.

We’re running out of time and I’ve got nothing left to give

The diamond in your eye cuts through my skin

The sugar in your mouth carves through my mind

The velvet in your hands burns through my soul

We’ve run out of time and I’ve got nothing left to lose

Lexa stares blankly at the words on the screen, deciphering what exactly is it is that she’s trying to tell herself. But she’s had two glasses of scotch and it’s going to her head a bit, so she moves on.

It was just after three in the morning when Lexa came in from work and with the passage of two more hours and three glasses of scotch, Lexa is asleep on her desk. Her cheek is smooshed against the dark wood of the table, her neck is bent at an awful angle, which is sure to hurt when she finally wakes, and there’s a small spot of drool on the desktop. She doesn’t make it a habit to fall asleep like this at her desk, that’s what she bought the couch for, but sometimes it seems unavoidable.

When Lexa wakes, she groans and mutters something meaningless directed at the bright light pouring in through the window. Her neck is very stiff and she wonders how well her night at work is going to go if she can’t turn to one side. She shrugs it off though and wipes her cheek and the corner of her mouth, “Gross.” She’s takes a look at herself and isn’t surprised to find that she’s not wearing her pants anymore, only boxer briefs and a shirt which is mostly unbuttoned, the sleeves rolled up. She grumbles lowly, “Time for a shower then.”

It feels good to be clean again and Lexa thinks maybe there is something magical about showers, because they always seem to make her feel better. Her neck feels slightly less awful by the time she gets out, which is a bonus. She throws on a pair of sweatpants and before she hunts the kitchen for breakfast, well technically lunch, eventually settling on making oatmeal with a banana, cinnamon, and brown sugar.

She doesn’t feel much like writing today, so she decides she might just do some research for her novel then maybe go for a walk in Central Park.

At three in the afternoon, Lexa makes herself something to eat before she has to get ready. At four, as Lexa is finishing putting on a standard fitted suit, she hears, “Lexa?”

“In the bedroom!” Lexa tightens up her tie until it is nearly flush against her neck and soon a pair of soft arms are circling her waist.

“Mm, I do love you in a suit, babe…” Lexa feels her hair being pulled aside and kisses being dropped on her neck, working their way to her jaw. The hands around her waist pull her in tight and Lexa laughs lightly, tossing her head to the side to give better access.

Lexa sighs and turns around, “You do know I have to work in this suit? It would not do to arrive in a wrinkled suit, Cos.”

“You own other suits…” Costia notes lightly, having leaned back in to kiss Lexa’ neck.

Lexa pulls back so she can look at Costia, “I do, but it is a Friday night so it is best to clock in earlier rather than later.” Lexa pecks Costia on the cheek, “I will make it up to you, promise.”

“Okay, finish getting ready and I will try to keep myself under control,” Costia tells her with a wink. “The mail is on the island by the way!” she shouts toward Lexa’s back.

“I will take a look when I get home!” Lexa throws her messenger bag over her shoulder out of habit, though it doesn’t have very much in it. Lexa walks toward the door, “Bye, Cos! I will see you later tonight!”

“Good luck, Lex—I love you!”

Hearing the words makes her smile, “You too, Cos!” She closes the door behind herself and makes her way down to the ground floor, rushing out the front of the building. She could walk, but it is a warm spring day and she’s wearing a suit and she is in no mood to sweat right now on the busiest night of the week, so she hails a cab and hopes they can make good time in the traffic.

When the cab pulls up to the restaurant, Lexa steps out and quickly hands the cabbie some cash through the passenger-side window, “Keep the change.” She skitters around to the back of Superius to use the employee entrance. Her boss is pretty lax with her, but even she would get a serious talking to if she didn’t use the service entrance. Indra, the owner and manager of Superius is flitting around the kitchen with a stern look on her face, being sure her chefs are doing their jobs properly, making sure the kitchen is so clean you could eat off the floor, and watching as the waiters bring food out to their respective tables in a timely manner. Lexa nods a simple greeting, which Indra returns with a stern face, as she moves through the kitchen to get to the staff room adjacent to Indra’s office. She throws her bag and her jacket into her locker before setting off for the bar.

This isn’t her dream job by any stretch of the imagination, but when she gets behind the bar, it feels like a few pieces of her life slot in place and she’d be lying if she said mixing drinks wasn’t a fun way to pass time. The bar is separated from the rest of the restaurant and sits on a slightly elevated platform. The counter forms a half circle around Lexa, an island of liquor residing behind her. Fridays are busy nights and while most of the time there would be two people working the bar, Lexa always works better alone. She acknowledges the two people who were working the slow shift before her and gets to work, cleaning up the bar and scanning to see if any of the customers or wait staff need drinks.

The night passes slowly for Lexa, but on the bright side, it’s a Friday and the bar stays open later, which means Lexa gets off work earlier because they pull in more people for the earlier morning hours. Lexa gets to clock out a midnight, spend some time with Costia, and maybe wake up at a more reasonable time in the morning.

Lexa has just an hour left on her shift when her favorite customer comes in. “The usual, Gustus?” she asks as a tall, tough-looking man with an incredible beard sat on one of the barstools.

“Please. Thank you, Lexa.” Gustus sighs and rakes a hand through his hair.

“Rough day?”

“Like you would not believe—the board decided we needed to lay off some people, so I had the oh-so-wonderful job of discussing employees with poor performance records and decided who will get the boot. Least I won’t be the one delivering the news…” Gustus takes a long sip from his glass of brandy.

“I do not envy you, Gustus.”

“Well, I'm positive working here is not all that it's cracked up to be, despite an upperclass clientele,” Gustus laughs.

Lexa shakes her head and leans in a little closer to Gustus, “To be honest, you are the only customer I can stand to be around for any length of time. If anything, working at a ritzy bar just means the men think they have the right to do whatever they want. You know those behaviors do not go over so well with me.”

“They over-estimate your tolerance for entitled pompous men, just in the very nature of being who they are,” Gustus says with a smirk.

“Ah, finally, a man who truly understands me,” she pretends to swoon with dramatic hand gestures. Down the bar she is being flagged down by another customer so she nods and smiles at Gustus before getting busy preparing drinks for others. She remains busy for most of the hour, though in the lulls she always stands by Gustus, briefly exchanging light banter. As the end of the hour draws near, Lexa is cleaning up the bar, removing empty glasses, placing dirty glasses in the sink, and wiping down all the counters for her coworkers. When Lexa finishes and the employees working the graveyard shift show up, Lexa walks by Gustus and tells him with a serious tone, “Please consume cautiously. I know it has been a tough day, but excess alcohol will only make it worse, I promise you.”

“Yes, boss,” he replies with a cocky grin and a mock salute.

Lexa rolls her eyes but smiles anyways and begins to walk away, “Have a good night, Gustus.”

“You too, Lexa.”

Lexa hails a cab with a smile firmly planted on her face. It’s a small smile, but it is there. Gustus always manages to make her shifts more bearable. Her cab ride takes a little longer than usual with the Friday night traffic. She always thought it was silly to say that this city never sleeps, though the illusion is kept up with full force on nights like tonight. Lexa is excited to get back to the apartment knowing that she will have more time to spend with Costia than she usually gets, their schedules being so discordant and Lexa’s late night homecomings.

The clock is nearing a quarter to one when the cab finally pulls up outside the apartments. She smiles at the woman at reception, as always, and the elevator feels like it takes longer than usual just because she has a little extra time. The apartment is quiet and dark when she opens the door, save for a night-lights illuminating the kitchen and the hallway. She walks down the hallway to find Costia asleep in their bed, laying on her stomach and peacefully asleep. Lexa considers walking in and waking her up, but thinks she should probably shower first.

After her shower, Lexa simply throws on a pair of black Calvin Klein Steel boxers and a white a-shirt. She thinks she should probably grab some water at least since she hasn’t had much in the way of food or drink since starting her shift. Lexa grabs a water bottle from the fridge and leans over the island counter on her elbows, taking small, slow sips. She idly flips through the small pile of mail on the counter, a cream-colored envelope catches her eye. But the moment she reads the sending address, her heart drops, stops, and any plans she had for the evening dissolve into thin air.

Before she even knows what she is doing, the water bottle is being left on the counter, the envelope is held to her chest, and she is rushing toward her office. She nearly drops the keys twice trying to get the door open and once she’s inside, she locks the door from the inside for the first time since being in the apartment. Lexa leans against the door, her forehead dropping heavy onto the dark wood. She breathes, “Fuck,” before turning to pour herself a glass of scotch. She knows, rationally, that drinking is not the appropriate response to the situation but at the same time, it feels like the only option she has. And of course, it is in bad taste to take your own advice.

She sits down at her desk with the letter and her double and takes in a deep breath before plucking her letter opener from a jar of ballpoint pens. She gently and slowly removes the letter from the envelope and closes her eyes briefly before opening it. She unfolds it and lets her eyes scan the paper.

Lexa Woods,

You have been invited to the opening of Supernova Art Gallery. The venue is located at 2190 Broadway, New York, NY. The gallery opens at 8:00 PM on Friday, June 24th. After opening night, the gallery will be open until Friday, July 1st, from 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM.

Supernova Art Gallery would be honored to have your presence.

Respectfully yours,

Clarke Griffin

Lexa’s heart is hammering in her chest when she finishes reading the invitation. She downs the rest of her scotch before pouring herself another double, leaving the bottle on her desk. Her thoughts are running a thousand miles a minute. To say that Lexa hasn’t thought of Clarke Griffin since their break up would be a lie. A huge lie. But, Lexa never expected that she would be thrown back into her life. In fact, Lexa was pretty positive Clarke Griffin never wanted to see her again. Ever. So to say this whole situation is a bit of a shock to Lexa’s system is a true understatement.

She knows she should leave her office, go to bed and cuddle up with Costia, but her brain won’t stop snagging on the past now and all the things she had done. She wonders if this means she is forgiven. She wouldn’t blame her for not forgiving her, but at the same time Lexa had done what she needed to do. Lexa tries to keep her mind away from her most days because it hurts, every thought hurts, but sometimes she can’t help but wonder exactly where things went wrong, where they could have gone together, and how she is doing now.

Finally Lexa settles on wondering how she never knew that Clarke Griffin was in her city, let alone opening a gallery in her city. She wonders how long she has been in the city, how she managed to get a storefront on Broadway. Lexa downs half her glass because fuck Clarke Griffin is in her city. Does she live here? How long has she lived here? How did she find Lexa’s address? Did she know Lexa lived here when she bought the gallery? Lexa has so many questions, none of which she is capable of answering herself. But, she knows someone who can.

She dials the number she’s had memorized for years and when a sleepy voice says, “hello?” she nearly apologizes for calling so late. Except then she remembers why she is calling in the first place. She pleads in a rush, “Tell me—tell me you didn’t know about this, Raven.”

Raven sighs, “Woah, slow down girl. I have no clue what you’re talking about. It’s two in the morning for God’s sake.”

“I got an invitation to her gallery opening. Supernova Art Gallery. Tell me you didn’t know. Please just tell me you didn’t know she was so close this whole time, Rae,” Lexa begs. She can’t seem to get that bitter taste out of her mouth and it only grows as the silence carries on. “How could you keep this from me?”

Lexa can hear Raven inhale deeply and exhale at a creeping pace, “Things just always worked out better when we avoided talking about…her. I just didn’t think it would help you to tell you she was so close.”

Lexa’s nodding along. It makes sense, it is a rational point, but Lexa still feels slightly betrayed. This is her city. “How did she—how did she get my address?” Lexa rubs at the back of her neck, truly puzzled.

“Well it certainly wasn’t me if that’s what you’re thinking, Lexa.”

Lexa rubs at her eyes; the alcohol is starting to hit her and she knows she shouldn’t continue this conversation now. “Thanks, Rae. Go back to sleep.”

Raven hums on the other end, “G’night, Lex.”

“Goodnight, Raven.” Lexa pushes the end button. Suddenly with the call over she realizes she had been pacing the floor and rubbing the hem of her shirt between her fingers.

She sinks back into her chair like an anchor. It’s been more than four years since Lexa has seen her. Is she ready to see her a month from now? Lexa drinks. She feels the alcohol zipping through her veins and she is thankful for it in this moment. She doesn’t want to think about anything right now; there are a thousand different scenes running through her head and not one of them is positive and she needs something to drown out the thoughts.

Unfortunately, drowning out the thoughts doesn’t keep Lexa’s heart from hurting, but the liquor does boost Lexa’s creativity. So she does what she does best: she puts on some decently loud sappy music, pulls out her favorite fountain pen and top-quality paper and gets to writing. The scritch-scratch of the fine nib on the paper is satisfying and soothing to Lexa, though she can’t say if writing all these things out will do more damage than good at this point.

But she writes and she writes and she tries to right what is happening in her mind, to center herself but she’s a little drunk off five shots of scotch. She doesn’t typically drink to excess but this brings up thoughts she never wanted to deal with again and everything feels so unresolved.

Four years and she still doesn’t know how things fell apart. She stares with a dead gaze at the empty glass in front of her, runs her fingers along the ridges in the old-fashioned glass. Lexa always thought her cup was half empty when she was young. And as she grew, she began to see it was half full. But then she realized that maybe her glass had always been too full. Eventually it tipped over the rocky surface of her life, spilled across her skin and left behind bruises. The glass broke over her heart and lodged itself there, sharp and punishing. As the years pass, she can still feel it there, pulsing, digging just that much deeper.

A knock at the door startles her out of her thoughts. “Lex?” comes Costia’s voice through the door. “Are you coming to bed?” Her voice is soft and sleepy and so sweet and it makes Lexa’s heart ache just that much more.

Lexa clears her throat and when she speaks the words come out more slurred than she thought they would, “Yeah, Cos, I’m just having a—a bad night. I do not, mm, I don’t feel so well.” Lexa scrubs her hands roughly up her face.

“Are you drunk?”

“It is possible.”

Outside the door is quiet and Lexa idly wonders if she can hear her music playing from there. Eventually, Costia says, “Okay. Just—just come to bed soon, okay? You’ve been sleeping in your office a lot lately.” Lexa just nods, though she knows, somewhere at the back of her mind, that Costia can’t see her. She lets out a long, harsh breath before cleaning up her desk, shakily putting the bottle back where it came from and sloppily hiding away the papers she was writing on, as well as the invitation. She tries to ignore the items she knows are hidden at the bottom of the drawer with a false bottom, kept in secret under stacks of papers and writing books.

Lexa stumbles a little to the door, unlocks it and then locks it again behind her. She makes her way slowly to the bathroom, dragging her hand along the wall for balance. The texture of the wall is smooth and soft beneath her fingers. She gets in the bathroom and nearly trips on the bath mat trying to get to the toilet. She washes her hands and brushes her teeth, splashes cool water on her face. Lexa looks at her face in the mirror; she looks like a wreck. At least she knows the bedroom light is off.

Lexa shuts off the too-bright light in the bathroom and makes her way a little further down the hall to their bedroom. In the dim light coming in from the streets she can see Costia’s outline, facing Lexa on her side. Lexa slowly walks to the bed and gets in on the left side. She rustles around until she is comfortable under the covers. She looks over to Costia who is facing away from her, “The past—it haunts, Cos. It hurts. Sometimes I wish I could forget.”

Costia’s voice is quiet, “Did you want to talk?”

Lexa’s response is nearly immediate, “No, I’ll be alright.” Lexa feels bad denying Costia this opportunity. Lexa doesn’t talk about her past and Costia only knows a few select facts about her life prior to their meeting. Lexa knows Costia must hope still that Lexa will open up, and Lexa hopes so too because Costia is sweet and Lexa trusts her and they’ve been together for quite some time now. Lexa is staring up at the ceiling, trying to stop her train of thought, when Costia rolls over and scooches closer to Lexa so she can rest her head on her chest. Costia sighs and wraps her arm around Lexa’s torso. Lexa doesn’t respond. Her chest feels heavy in more ways than one and her mind is addled; her eyes are drooping closed with the weight of recent events and the aid of alcohol.

When Lexa wakes in the morning, her eyes strain against the incoming late-morning light, and she sees that Costia is long gone, as she’d expected. Lexa would like to say that she doesn’t get hang overs, but that simply isn’t true when someone gulps down five shots of scotch in relatively quick succession. Luckily, the headache and nausea aren’t very bad; some water and a couple of pills will help with that.

She showers quickly and when she goes out to the kitchen to make herself breakfast she finds a sticky note on the counter which reads: Hope you have a better day today! –Cos A small heart is drawn beside Costia’s name and it makes Lexa smile lightly. Costia never asks, never pushes Lexa to talk about the things she doesn’t want to and Lexa is grateful for that. Lexa has more baggage than most people, but Costia knows what is vitally important, which Lexa has deemed isn’t very much. But Costia doesn’t complain about her walls and things are good between them; she has no reason to change their path now.

She’s a little more clearheaded this morning despite the fading headache, but she resolves to ignore the invitation buried deep inside one of her drawers in favor of not spending another night drinking herself into a stupor. She can come up with more constructive ways of coping with the multitude of memories and emotions that are assaulting her mind. Except, of course, this could not have come at a worse time because she gets Saturdays and Sundays off which means she has nothing to do to distract herself. Lexa wonders if writing is a good idea right now and decides against it. She instead decides now is a great time to go for a run, maybe do some calisthenics.

While she’s out for her run, a brilliant idea pops into her head for her novel and it has her turning around to go back to her apartment before she’s truly finished, repeating key parts of the scene in her head so as not to forget them. By the time she gets back, she’s nearly mind-mapped out the entire scene with full dialogue. When she gets back, Costia is there again, back from visiting her mother. Lexa pecks Costia on the cheek before sprinting to her office to translate the scene in her mind from images to words. Her legs and back stick to the leather chair when she sits down which feels gross, but she can’t be bothered to change just yet.

She emerges from the office half an hour later and sits beside Costia on the couch. They talk about how Costia’s mother is doing. Lexa takes Costia out to dinner, somewhere nice but not somewhere that requires a reservation. Their dinner is filled with inconsequential chatter, but it flows easily and Lexa uses this to bolster her case that they are still good together, the same way they’ve been good. Nothing between them has changed. They collapse into bed together that night. Lexa is a little distant. Costia doesn’t ask about the night before. Lexa doesn’t bring it up.

They should have realized sooner. It was obvious to everyone else, which they knew because several people—peers, friends, parents—asked them if they were dating. They laughed it off like it was the most ludicrous idea in the world. They would say, “She’s my best friend!” That was never a reason why they couldn’t be dating, of course, just a reason that it appeared as though they were. Lexa had never felt such a strong desire to always be around someone, and Clarke had never felt so happy when she made someone laugh. They both thought this was just a particularly strong friendship. It seemed reasonable to them both.

But, love is a blinding thing and sometimes humans don’t see what is directly in front of them.

Clarke realizes what she is feeling before it’s even an inkling in Lexa’s mind. She figures it out shortly after winter break, but she keeps it to herself. She lets things continue between them just as they always have, with inside jokes, movie nights, and soft platonic touches and hand-holding. Clarke convinces herself it doesn’t mean anything because Lexa is her best friend and there’s no way Lexa could like Clarke in the same way. It’s an impossibility that she doesn’t want to linger on, but it’s hard not to linger when they just keep getting closer in every way.

When Clarke tells her father one night, sitting in the living room in front of the fireplace, that she might have a crush on Lexa that won’t go away, he tries (and fails) to encourage Clarke to tell her. Clarke adamantly refuses, “I don’t want this to change anything between us. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll lose one of my best friends.”

“You’ll never know if you don’t try, Clarke.”

“I know, but what we have right now is great, Dad. What if being officially together changes things?”

Her father sighs. He doesn’t really know what to say because there is no way to know what will happen, but he settles on telling her, “You’ll still be Clarke and Lexa whether you’re dating or not. And forgive me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it more painful to not be able to do anything with your feelings? I remember how awful it was to keep my crush on your mother to myself, thinking it would never happen, and look where we are now.”

“This just feels different, Dad. She’s my best friend. I’ve never felt like this before…”

“Whatever you choose, it will all work itself out. It always does, even if the universe has a funny idea of what our futures should look like.”

Lexa, on the other hand, has a moment of clarity when she is going through her backpack at the end of the school year, taking out her books and folders and amongst them she finds scraps of paper, index cards, and dog-eared pages marked up with pens of different colors. She sorts out the things that are strictly from school and, unsurprisingly, those items are looking pristine, barely touched, clearly ignored. It isn’t that she doesn’t like school, she just usually has something far more interesting to read or write, which makes it rather hard to actually pay attention in school. It can get her in trouble sometimes, but her grades are pretty great considering, so she doesn’t make it a point to change anything.

In contrast, her books are well loved and worn, the scraps of paper have small tears in them, and the index cards are crinkled from being shoved into her pocket and then floating around at the bottom of her backpack. Everything is dated, usually in the upper right corner as a point of reference. She keeps all these things tucked away in a shoebox by date—to measure her progress, to see what she used to think and feel, for inspiration for the future. She can note exactly where shifts in her thinking and interests occurred in her writing. And as she sorts through the drabbles from the past year, she sees a curious trend. The words written begin to bring only one image to mind as she gets further into the stack, an image of her best friend’s brilliant smile and blue eyes.

Slowly she drops the papers in front of her, sighs, rubs the back of her neck and whispers, “Oh God.” She can’t seriously have a crush on her best friend right? Surely that must break a rule somewhere. Lexa vows to not let her feelings go any further; it wouldn’t be fair to put Clarke in that position and make her uncomfortable. Lexa wonders how she managed to not know she has a crush on Clarke considering all their interactions. Somehow this feels so much different from anything else though; it feels unlike any other attraction she’s had, and vastly more important.

Lexa tries to push the scary feelings aside, to cast them away into their own little box deep in the pit of her heart, in the back of her mind, but these feelings don’t give in as easily as others have in the past. She’s always had a nifty ability to compartmentalize, dilute, and ignore the full range of emotions where she deems it fit to do so. But Lexa can tell right from the start that removing herself from the feelings she has for Clarke will not go as smoothly. These are the types of emotions and thoughts that take over in little moments of peace and quiet, and it has Lexa feeling more afraid than she would like to admit.

She’s scared and concerned about all the ways this could go wrong, all the ways she could screw up their friendship by injecting romantic feelings where there should be none. So she draws back bit by bit as the summer progresses. She doesn’t pull away when Clarke holds her hand or touches her thigh when she laughs. She doesn’t scooch aside when Clarke moves closer on the couch or in bed. She lets Clarke sit on her lap by the pool “because you always get the best chair and the rest have been sitting in the sun all day.” But Lexa doesn’t initiate anything, doesn’t rest her head on Clarke’s shoulder when they watch a movie, doesn’t engage in tickle attacks, doesn’t let the hugs linger for long when they say goodbye.

Clarke notices, but can’t bring herself to ask why.

Summer is rapidly coming to an end, with three weeks left until school begins again. Bellamy graduated from Magnus Ark High School in June, and he’s going off to college come late-August. Clarke, Lexa, Octavia, and Bellamy spend a lot of time together over the summer, any time they can, really. Which works in Lexa’s favor because being in the company of others is good reason to keep her hands off of Clarke and keep the pining stares to a minimum.

Anya drops Lexa off at the Griffin’s at 8:30 in the morning on a hot Saturday. The morning air is already warm and sticky and Lexa’s hair does exactly what she doesn’t want it to do and becomes a fluffy, frizzy mess. Lexa nudges the side of her glasses to push them back onto her face when she gets out to grab her bag from the back seat. She slings the small duffle over her shoulder before waving goodbye to Anya.

Lexa is at the Griffin’s so often, she doesn’t even bother knocking or ringing the bell before just walking in. They know she’s coming anyways. She lets her bag slide off her shoulder before following the voices she hears to the kitchen.

“And you’re sure Bellamy’s a responsible driver, Clarke?”

“Yes, Mom. O will be there too. You know how careful he is with her.”

When Lexa steps into the kitchen, she finds Jake at the stove making Belgian waffles while Clarke sits at the table stuffing her face and Abby sits in her usual seat across from her drinking a cup of coffee. All eyes turn to her and it never ceases to surprise her the way Jake and Abby smile at her.

“Good morning, Sweetheart,” Abby greets.

“Good morning, Abby,” she grins and turns to Clarke’s father, “Jake.”

“Good morning, Lex! Would you like some waffles?” Jake asks with a sweet smile.

“Is that even a question? Your waffles are legendary,” she says as she excitedly grabs a plate from the cabinet and holds it out for a couple waffles before heading back to sit at the table.

“Ah, high compliments from my favorite daughter! Could my day get any better?”

Clarke gasps and glares at Lexa and her father, “Dad, I’m sitting right here!” Abby chuckles at her response.

“Clarke, she loves everything I make! And she’s so polite, hardly a teenager at all!”

Abby adds, “Plus, she always helps around the house when she comes over.”

“It’s hard not to love a girl like that!” Jake says with a sneaky smile directed at Clarke.

Clarke rolls her eyes at the obvious jab toward her own feelings and looks back at Lexa as she says, “Looks like we’re gonna have to start competing for first place, huh?” Lexa doesn’t respond and she is blankly staring at her plate. “Lex?”

Lexa’s head snaps up quickly, “I’m sorry. If you’ll excuse me just a moment.” Lexa stands from her chair and walks swiftly, but calmly, out of the kitchen. The Griffins share bewildered and concerned glances; Lexa’s never gotten up and walked away quite like that before.

Clarke clears her throat and says, “I’ll just—” and she gestures vaguely in the direction Lexa went before getting up.  Clarke finds Lexa in the half-bath, the door closed and the natural light of the sun slipping under the door. She knocks. “Lexa? Lex, can I come in?”

There is only drawn out silence for a long moment before Clarke hears the door clicking unlocked. She opens the door slowly to find Lexa sitting cross-legged on the mat in front of the sink, her forehead resting firmly in her hands. Clarke can hear Lexa take a deep breath before lifting her head and looking anywhere but at Clarke. She shuffles into the small bathroom and closes the door behind her. She slowly lowers herself to the floor in front of Lexa and puts her hands on the girl’s knees. Clarke tries to catch Lexa’s eyes but she refuses to look at her. Clarke squeezes one knee, “Lex, please, look at me? What’s wrong?”

Lexa closes her eyes tightly, takes a deep breath in, then turns to look at Clarke. When her eyes open, Clarke can see that her eyes are watery; she isn’t exactly crying per se, but she definitely isn’t not crying. “I am unaccustomed to feeling like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like—like someone loves me? I know how ridiculous that is because I know Father loves me, and Anya of course, but this is different. It’s—it’s just different.”

Clarke smiles sadly, “Well, it seems like you’re the fourth member of the Griffin family now; you’ll get used to it pretty quickly. Dad seems hell-bent on sharing just how much he loves you.”

Lexa nods, smiles lightly at Clarke’s words. Her voice is so quiet when she speaks next that Clarke nearly misses it when she breathes, “I miss Mom…” And Clarke, she has no idea what to say to that. Instead she finds herself crawling into Lexa’s lap, wrapping her legs around Lexa’s lower back and hugging her as tightly as she can manage short of suffocation. She feels Lexa’s arms wrap around her waist and her head settles on her chest.

They sit for a couple minutes until Lexa draws back to say, “We should go. My waffles are getting cold.” Clarke laughs and follows her back out.

When they step into the kitchen they find Abby and Jake in a compromising position. Though the only thing it compromises is Lexa’s ability to take them seriously as adults because they’re acting like lovesick puppies if she’s being totally honest. Clarke scrunches up her nose and Lexa just smiles; Abby and Jake are dancing slowly to some song that Jake is humming softly by Abby’s ear. Their eyes are closed and they’re both grinning lightly.

When Jake finishes up whatever song he was humming, they give each other a quick peck, at which Clarke makes gagging noises and Lexa looks away. “Are you two all packed and ready to go?” Jake asks as he begins putting the dishes in the washer.

“Yeah, Dad, you gave me an entire checklist and made sure I went through everything twice.”

“Jake is a smart man. No trip is ever complete without at least five checklists, Clarke,” Lexa says. Clarke and Abby are shaking their heads in disbelief.

“Thank you, Lexa! Finally someone who sees their true value!” Jake says enthusiastically.

“Whatever. Bellamy’s gonna be here soon; I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” Clarke grumbles. She isn’t exactly a huge fan of being micromanaged with checklists. It isn’t the end of the world if she forgets something for a two day trip to the beach where hygiene is going to be limited anyways.

Lexa goes to the bathroom after Clarke and not five minutes later, Bellamy is rolling up the driveway with Octavia in the passenger seat. Lexa and Clarke bring their duffle bags out to the car while Abby and Jake bring out a tent and sleeping bags. When they leave, Bellamy’s Jeep is packed with tents, sleeping bags, coolers of food and drinks, LED lamps, and just about anything else they could need for an overnight stay on a beach, courtesy of the Blake and Griffin parents.

···

It’s a long trip up to the beach, roughly three and a half hours. They spend the time talking as a group and in pairs, they sing to songs on the radio loudly with the windows down, they point out the names of weird town names and street signs, they try to see who can find the most cars of a particular brand. At some point, they even listen to an NPR podcast about Bessie Smith, the Empress of Blues, and her influence on jazz music in the 1920’s, per Lexa’s insistence. The others make fun of her for wanting to keep it on just for a bit, but she’s the one smirking when the others are thoroughly engrossed in the podcast, letting it run until the end.

As they get closer to the coast, the sides of the highway shift and morph from short green grass and dirt to loose sand and tall reedy grasses. The tell-tale scent of the ocean, slightly fishy and salty yet somehow fresh, floats in the air around them. Clarke has her window all the way down and she loves the way the wind feels on her face, the way it sounds as it rushes past her ears. Something about it is incredibly soothing. “We’ll be there in another 15 minutes, guys,” Bellamy announces.

“Oh thank God I’ve gotta pee so bad,” Octavia says as she squirms in her seat.

Bellamy laughs, “I told you to go at the rest stop, O.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t have to go then. That happens sometimes you know.”

Lexa takes in a deep breath of the ocean air. “I’ve never been to the beach before,” she says.

Octavia whips around at that. “Are you serious?” she nearly shouts. Lexa just nods. “Damn, Woods, just you wait! You’re in for a treat! I hope you’re prepared to get sand in all the places you never wanted it though.” Lexa grimaces at the thought, but Bellamy and Clarke chuckle.

“Even with sand in gross places, you’re gonna love it, Lex. Trust me,” Clarke says with a squeeze to Lexa’s hand. Clarke smiles widely at Lexa and she sends her a small smile in return. She gets a little caught up in Clarke’s gaze; Clarke’s eyes always sparkle and Lexa wonders how she manages to capture stars like that. Lexa drags her eyes away with a blush to look out the front window as they pull onto a road which runs parallel to the shoreline.

“The water will be warm this late in the summer, right?” Octavia asks.

“Yes, the ocean is warmest in September or October, so it will be decently warm now.”

Clarke laughs, “Lex, you just said you’ve never been to the beach before. How could you know that?”

Lexa shrugs, “I read a lot, Clarke. Also, science.”

“Yeah, okay, nerd,” Octavia scoffs.

“I am not a nerd!” Lexa protests.

“Says the girl who reads comic books and encyclopedias and thinks War and Peace is ‘light reading for bed,’” Clarke quips.

Bellamy cuts in, “I know this line of conversation is incredibly important guys, but we’re about to pull in to the parking lot.”

“Thank God I’m about to pee my pants here,” Octavia whines. The moment Bellamy puts the Jeep in park, Octavia is running out to find a bathroom, leaving the other three to try and carry their overabundance of supplies to the beach. On the first trip, Bellamy carries both tents and two sleeping bags, Clarke carries the other two sleeping bags as well as two coolers of food, and Lexa decides to carry all four of their duffle bags.

Clarke skeptically asks, “Lexa are you sure you can carry all that?”

Lexa looks insulted. “Of course, Clarke. This is nothing.”

“No need to show off. I already like you, you know,” Clarke says and she wishes she didn’t because shit that sounds like she means something different. Lexa merely quirks up an eyebrow at her before continuing on the 150 foot walk to their spot on the beach. By the time both girls get there, Octavia and Bellamy are working on setting up the tents because they know by the time night does come, no one is going to want to lift a finger. “Bell, O, we’re gonna run back to the Jeep to grab the rest of the stuff. Throw me the keys; I’ll lock it up after.”

Bellamy struggles to find the keys in his pocket while holding up the tent with the other before chucking the keys in Clarke’s direction. She catches them swiftly before turning and looping her arm through Lexa’s to walk back to the Jeep. “Are you excited, Lex?”

“Absolutely,” she says with the straightest face Clarke has ever seen.

“Oh yes, you sound so very enthusiastic!”

“I promise I am, Clarke. Are you excited?”

“Yeah! I haven’t been to the beach since last year, and now I get to be here with my favorite person!” Clarke nudges Lexa’s shoulder and smiles brightly at her. Lexa feels her cheeks get hot and she hopes the sun is bright enough to drown out the color. She dips her head down in response anyway to keep Clarke from seeing her face.

The rest of the walk is quiet and Lexa looks up at the sky, letting Clarke guide her. The clouds are snowy white and fluffy and the sun is high in the sky. She feels the warmth of the sun on her skin and as the wind moves around her, she feels the sun is encompassing her in comfort and something soft. Lexa feels Clarke’s thumb gently grazing where it rests on her bicep and when she turns to look at Clarke, the feeling of being enveloped in comfort and softness doesn’t leave. If anything, the feelings become more noticeable and she feels an overwhelming urge to hold Clarke and run away at the same time.

Clarke pulls her arm away when they reach the Jeep to grab the last of the items in the trunk; a few more coolers, some games, and several towels. Clarke hands each item over to Lexa and in the end, Lexa ends up carrying most of the items stacked in a wobbly mess on her arms. Clarke locks the Jeep and Lexa starts to make her way back to the beach.

“Wait, wait, I need a picture of this. You look so tiny with all that stuff!” Lexa sends Clarke a stern look which clearly says I am not tiny when Clarke pulls out her camera to snap a picture. Lexa huffs and looks anywhere but at the camera. “Well at least I didn’t take one while you were carrying the duffles…lil’ peanut,” Clarke mumbles, mostly to herself.

Lexa rolls her eyes and begins to walk away. “I am not that small, Clarke, and you know it. We are essentially the same size.”

“Oh come on, it’s cute, Lex!” Clarke laughs as she jogs to catch up. In all honesty, Lexa isn’t actually very offended, but she does have a reputation to keep up and she really isn’t small at all, she’s average height, even if she may otherwise be somewhat petite. Clarke loops her arm back through Lexa’s, nearly knocking over the precariously balanced items. Lexa shakes her head; Clarke just shrugs.

When they get back down to their spot on the beach Octavia is digging a hole in the ground and Bellamy is still finishing setting up the second tent. “Jesus, where were you guys? I was about to send Bell out on rescue mission!"

“Chill, O. It wasn’t that long,” Clarke says as she pulls items from Lexa’s arms. “So what’s going where?”

Bellamy’s voice calls out, “Food and drinks can go in our tent, the rest can go in yours.”

“Roger that. O, what are you doing anyway?” Clarke asks as she and Lexa put things in their respective places.

“Making myself a seat that’s gonna cradle my butt so perfectly I’ll never wanna leave.”

“Right, okay well, I’m just gonna go change real quick,” Clarke says before ducking into her and Lexa’s tent and zipping it up. She reemerges a few minutes later wearing a turquoise bikini. Now, Lexa has seen Clarke in similar states of undress many times given that Clarke seems to often insist on changing in the same room at sleepovers and they’ve already been swimming together throughout the summer. But the sight never ceases to cause an upswing of butterflies in her belly. She averts her gaze quickly, a blush rushing up her cheeks, and in her haste makes eye-contact with Octavia, which has her blushing further. Octavia smirks and gives Lexa a knowing look; Lexa’s doe-eyed stares aren’t fooling anyone.

They all spend a while just chilling on the beach; Clarke, Octavia, and Bellamy all work on their tans and Lexa warns them that they really should be using sun block of some sort even if they are tanning. She eventually manages to convince Clarke so put some on after half an hour because, “Clarke, you are the palest of all of us. There is simply no way you never burn.”

“Have you ever seen me with a burn?”

“No, but you also haven’t been spending all your waking hours outside in the sun.”

“Fine,” Clarke huffs and sticks her tongue out. Octavia makes a flicking motion with her wrist and a whipping sound which has Clarke glaring and Lexa looking confused. Bellamy chuckles too before fist-bumping Octavia.

Clarke finishes putting a layer of sunblock on and lays back down, on her stomach this time. Lexa quickly looks away and distracts herself with the sights of the beach instead. The beach isn’t very large, maybe a mile long from Lexa’s view. Down the beach she can see hundreds of people jammed together on the sand and in the water. Small children are running around and parents are sitting under massive umbrellas. Lexa’s thankful they paid extra to be able to use a private part of the beach owned by whoever lives in the massive house not far in the opposite direction. Lexa’s not particularly fond of large crowds or cramped quarters. There are a couple other groups of people on the private beach, though they don’t have tents.

···

Octavia and Bellamy have been in the water for some time and Clarke watches as they splash each other and enjoy the warm water. Bellamy gets dragged under a couple of times by the waves, but he doesn’t seem to really mind. She turns to face Lexa who is quietly reading, laying on her stomach in a black sports bra and white knee-length board shorts. She wonders if Lexa owns any other books because 80% of the time, Lexa is reading that one. “Why do you always read that one? Don’t you get sick of it?” she asks.

“I could never get sick of it. It is my absolute favorite, Clarke. It is inspiring, full of words to live by and I always find something I missed before. And it happens to be where I write notes for things I would like to write in the future.” Lexa pauses for a moment and Clarke can see the hesitation on her face before she says, “And I like Oskar. He reminds me of myself sometimes. Which just sounds absurd because he is a nine-year-old child, but I find I connect with him somewhere between the lines.”

“Read me something,” Clarke says quietly. Suddenly, the waves sound louder than ever and the wind is screaming in Lexa’s ears because she loves to read and write but reading out loud is so not her forte. But, she will do it for Clarke because Clarke is sweet and the way she looks at Lexa with those damn stars in her eyes makes Lexa’s heart flutter. How can she say no to a girl like that?

“Okay.” Lexa turns over to sit up, then flips through the book for several minutes, looking for the right passage to read. She switches between two final passages, deciding which would be best. She settles, clears her throat, and reads, “Does it break my heart, of course, every moment of every day, into more pieces than my heart was made of, I never thought of myself as quiet, much less silent, I never thought about things at all, everything changed.” Lexa pauses and draws in a deep breath before continuing, “ The distance that wedged itself between me and my happiness wasn’t the world, it wasn’t the bombs and burning buildings, it was me, my thinking, the cancer of never letting go, is ignorance bliss, I don’t know, but it’s so painful to think, and tell me, what did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think, I’ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.”

The silence between them drags on for a several seconds before Clarke’s eyes widen a touch and she just mutters, “Shit.”

“I apologize, I didn’t realize how—heavy—that passage was until I got halfway through,” Lexa says with a slight frown.

“You don’t need to apologize for that. Sure it’s a little heavy for a day at the beach but if the whole book is like that, I can see why you love it so much. Maybe you’ll let me read your beloved book sometime, yeah?” Clarke says with that beaming smile which Lexa has learned to associate with herself. It’s a bright smile that crinkles the corners of her eyes, a glowing smile reserved for Lexa Woods. Lexa gets caught up in the moment, in that smile, and sends her own warm smile back because this is Clarke Griffin, an actual ray of sunshine.

Lexa and Clarke snap out of their reverie when they hear Octavia say, “The ocean wouldn’t dare pull me under; I’m too tough. I mean, take a look at these guns.”

Bellamy lowers his voice and adds a rough, gravelly quality to it, “Are you saying I’m not tough?”

“That is exactly what I’m saying!” Octavia says with a smirk.

Bellamy mutters out a barely audible, “Rude...” Octavia falls gracelessly into her sand-seat and Bellamy flops down onto his towel. “Anybody got the time?”

“5:30,” Lexa says, not even looking up from where her feet are digging a hole in the sand.

“How did you know that? You didn’t even check!” Clarke says.

“The angle of the sun is very telling.”

“You’re seriously such a nerd.”

“Please, you love it.”

“Whatever you say, Lex.”

Bellamy stands up again, “Anyways, I’m gonna go grab something to eat. Anybody want anything?”

“Yeah, grab me a PB and J and a juice box, would ya?” Octavia asks before kicking back in her makeshift chair.

···

As the evening carries on, the beach empties and they play KanJam across the private beach in teams. Octavia and Bellamy win, but Lexa claims the only reason they won is because they’ve practiced more combined than Lexa and Clarke had. As the sun begins to set behind them, Clarke insists that they all take a walk to collect seashells, but Bellamy and Octavia are engrossed in a card game, so Lexa walks with Clarke.

The fine grains of sand beneath their feet are soft and cool, though occasionally a rough shell will be hiding just beneath the surface waiting to be uncovered. A short pier of rocks separates the private beach from the public beach and where the rocks meet the water there is a collection of thousands of miniscule purple and white shells. Clarke crouches down to scoop up the thin shells and funnels them into a plastic bag to bring back home. As the sun finishes setting, both girls have a small bag filled with shells of varying shapes and sizes, even a couple pieces of sea glass, but neither one makes any move to turn back.

The two pass by the pier and continue on down the beach, their shoulders and hands brushing occasionally. Clarke takes Lexa’s hand and intertwines their fingers; Lexa tries to keep the fluttering in her chest to a minimum. She fails.

As the moon begins to rise and Lexa nearly stops in her tracks to watch it, not even noticing when Clarke tugs on her hand to keep walking. The moon is a sliver of a circle sitting on the water, bright red like the feathers of a scarlet ibis. Lexa is transfixed by its slow ascent and she plops down into the sand to watch without a care in the world. Clarke is pulled down with her and Lexa says in awe, “I have never seen a moon so—massive and intense…”

“Yeah, it’s pretty magnificent.”

They watch quietly as the moon gradually shifts into a tiger lily orange, a popcorn yellow, and then its familiar silver-white as it rises higher into the sky. “We should probably head back, Lex. It’s getting late.” Clarke helps Lexa up by the hand and she makes it a point to walk through the edge of the water, occasionally splashing Lexa’s legs.

When they arrive back at the tents, they notice that Bellamy and Octavia’s tent is lit up and Bellamy is sitting alone outside. “Where’d O go?” Clarke asks.

“She’s getting ready for bed. Said the sun and the swimming and all wiped her out. I was waiting up for you guys to get back,” Bellamy explains.

“You didn’t have to do that, Bellamy,” Lexa says, feeling a little guilty that they took too long to come back.

“It’s no problem, just wanted to make sure you were both safe. And I wasn’t really ready for bed yet anyways.”

Octavia comes out of the tent wearing red pajama pants and a black t-shirt. “Bell, your turn.”

Bellamy walks away and Lexa thinks it’s a good idea to just get ready now. “I’m going to go brush my teeth and whatnot. Be back in a few,” Lexa says before walking off to grab her toothbrush and find a bathroom to use.

Clarke watches Lexa leave and resents the coldness that washes over her hand at the loss of contact. “Okay you two seriously need to get yourselves together,” Octavia says with a disbelieving tone.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re both so blind. You clearly like her and she obviously likes you. She couldn’t keep her eyes off you earlier and I mean, come on, you’re not that funny and she laughs at everything you say.”

“Hey!”

“It’s true! Plus, you can never keep your damn hands to yourself. And don’t think I didn’t see you two holding hands, watching the sunset like some sappy old couple. For real, get it together, muster up some of that Griffin charm and just ask her out already. You’re so cute and oblivious with each other it is physically painful to watch. Talk to her, please, for the sake of my health. Bellamy’s, too.”

At the end of Octavia’s mini rant, Bellamy comes out from the tent and she can see Lexa walking back in the distance, but all she can do is blush and gape at Octavia’s words before walking away to hide in the tent for a minute under the guise of getting ready for bed. Internally, she’s freaking out a bit because she knows she and Lexa are a little closer than most best friends with all the touching, but she didn’t realize she was so obvious otherwise. She never told Octavia how she felt about Lexa and now she is mortified at the thought that Lexa has figured it out because that would certainly explain why Lexa doesn’t initiate any sort of closeness anymore.

Clarke is snapped out of her thoughts when the tent rustles and opens and Lexa ducks inside. She notices the slightly panicked expression on her face and asks cautiously, “Are you alright, Clarke?”

“Yeah, sorry, just lost in thought… I’m gonna go brush,” Clarke says before leaving. She takes her time getting ready to let herself calm down before seeing Lexa again. Lexa always seems to know when something is wrong, which can act as both a blessing and a curse. In this case, a curse, because the last thing she wants to do is tell Lexa that she kinda sorta has a gigantic crush on her that refuses to go away. In fact, she realizes it only seems to be getting worse.

Bellamy and Octavia’s tent is already dark when Clarke gets back and her and Lexa’s tent is illuminated by the cool glow of an LED lamp. She pulls back the flap on the front of the tent and steps in, zipping it back up behind her. When she turns she sees that Lexa has already changed into a baggy white t-shirt and a pair of baby blue boxer briefs. Clarke smiles at the sight and says, “Hey.” Some of the worry Clarke feels disappears because Lexa always makes it better. Being around Lexa is calming and comforting and it makes her happy.

“Hello, Clarke. Long time, no see, hm?”

“Ah yes, I was counting the seconds until I would set my eyes upon you once more, my dear!” Clarke says in an awful attempt at a dramatic 1940s transatlantic accent.

Lexa bursts out laughing, “And you call me the nerd?”

“So I’m an old movie junkie. Sue me.”

“You know, I might consider doing that if I didn’t know, without a doubt, that Mama and Papa Griff would have the best lawyers in the country defending you. In fact, I bet I would end up having to pay you in the end of it all.”

“Valid point.” Clarke finishes setting up her sleeping bag and pillow, making sure there won’t be anything in the way of her spreading out, aside from Lexa of course. Lexa turns away when she sees Clarke pulling her pajamas from her bag. She rubs at the hem of her t-shirt while she waits. “You can turn around, Peanut.”

Lexa groans and whines, “Please tell me that isn’t going to be a thing now?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t promise that, Peanut,” Clarke says with a smirk.

Lexa mumbles, “I’m not a peanut…”

Clarke whispers, “Actually, you are, Lex.” Lexa just huffs and shimmies down in her sleeping bag. Well, Clarke notes that she is still mostly out of the sleeping bag really, which is completely unzipped down the side. “Are you going to bed already?”

“Are you?”

“I’m not tired yet. Do you really mind me calling you Peanut?”

Lexa sighs, “No… Though I still contest that I am not that small. And if you aren’t going to bed, I was planning on just reading. If you don’t mind, of course.”

“Go for it. By the way, you really need to get into the water tomorrow. I can’t believe you didn’t even go in at all today, your first time at the beach. I’ll drag you in myself if I have to.”

“Good luck with that, Clarke.” Lexa knows she will want to go in the water tomorrow anyways; Octavia said the water was warm enough to be like slightly cool bath water, though she isn’t looking forward to the itchy feeling Bellamy described after drying off. There are wash stations set up somewhere down the beach if she wants to use one at least. And while she knows that the chance of a shark attack is very limited, it still freaks her out a little bit. Also, jellyfish.

Lexa flips over onto her belly and reaches for her book in the corner of the tent. Part of her wants to read more passages to Clarke, but some of the parts she wants to read won’t make sense without reading the things before it. The other part of her wants Clarke to read it herself and write her thoughts in the margins. Lexa worries Clarke wouldn’t like it because it’s an odd novel with highly experimental narrative styles, but she hopes that Clarke would see the value in it that she does.

As Lexa reads quietly, Clarke thinks now is a good time to draw. Her fingers had been itching to sketch the beach all day. She scraps the first one, drawn with graphite pencils of varying degrees of hardness and softness, because it just wasn’t expressing the scene well enough. She begins a second with color, drawing the bright red moon, purple sky, and navy waters. She’s happy with it for the most part. When she checks her phone, it is nearly two in the morning and she knows she’s tired because her eyes are blurry at the edges and her head somehow feels light and achey at the same time.

She looks over at Lexa, whose book has fallen down onto the floor of the tent above her pillow, her face resting peacefully on the pillow facing Clarke. It’s probably a bad idea, but Clarke thinks it is a great idea in her moment of sleepy haze: she begins to sketch Lexa. It’s a rough sketch, little more than a rudimentary outline of her features, but it’s all she has the energy for right now. When it’s ‘finished’ she closes the sketchbook and lays down. Except she can’t sleep because her brain won’t shut up. It’s too quiet, even with the muted noise of the waves outside and she has such a strong desire to move closer to Lexa and cuddle up, though she is pretty sure if she does that they’ll both get too hot.

Clarke begins to wonder once more if Lexa knows, if that’s why she’s been more distant lately, especially when others are around. She watches as Lexa flips over to face the other way, kicking her sleeping bag down toward her feet. Her mouth opens before she can even think to stop herself. “Lexa? Are you awake?” she asks quietly.

Lexa grumbles with discontent, “No. It’s hot.”

“Can I ask you something?” Clarke bites her lip waiting for the response. All she gets is a light hum and a small nod in response. She takes a deep breath because there’s no turning back after this and she says, “You’ve been distant lately… Have I done something?”

The tent is silent for a few long moments before Lexa rolls over and looks at Clarke with sleepy green eyes. “You haven’t done anything,” she says quietly.

“Then why?”

Lexa takes a deep breath in and her brow furrows, contemplating how to word her jumbled thoughts. “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. With the touching and stuff.”

Clarke’s face morphs with confusion, “What made you think I was uncomfortable?”

“I don’t know…” Lexa says, quieter yet, and Clarke thinks she’s never heard Lexa’s voice sound quite so small. Lexa turns onto her back and looks out the top of the tent at the stars in the sky, trying to avoid giving into Clarke’s puzzled expression, hoping she’ll just drop the conversation.

“Lexa?” comes Clarke’s voice from beside her. Lexa runs her hands roughly over her face, trying to clear the sleep from her eyes and mind, trying to keep the panic from seeping into her chest.

There is anxiety pooling in her stomach, mounting until it sits in her lungs, hanging heavy on every breath that comes out more shakily than it should. Her left thumb and forefinger are rubbing uselessly at Peter Rabbit’s ear beside her now and her throat feels tight with the words she’s trying to arrange in her head. She clears her throat, “Clarke—I cannot believe I’m about to say this but—I may or may not have less-than-platonic feelings for you,” Lexa admits in a rush, scrunching her eyes firmly together. Lexa waits for a response and for the first time, she understands what the books mean when they mention a deafening silence. Is there anything more torturous than this?

“Oh,” Clarke breathes. “You do?”

The shock is evident in Clarke’s voice and Lexa begins to panic a little and words come bursting out. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I was trying to distance myself because I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable with my romantic feelings in this purely platonic friendship—”

“Lex.”

“—and I didn’t want to ruin what we had. And really I was never going to say anything because—”

“Lexa.”

“—God, this is mortifying. Why is having feelings a thing? And it just snuck up on me all of a sudden and I realized these feelings were more than I thought—”

Clarke grabs Lexa’s hand which was anxiously fiddling with the nails of her other hand, “Lexa, it’s okay!” Clarke gives Lexa a reassuring smile and then, “I like you, too.”

Lexa’s shocked face turns to Clarke’s, their eyes meeting. “You what?”

“I like you, too?” Clarke says with a shy smile and a tint on her cheeks.

“That—is by far the best news I have heard in quite some time,” Lexa says with wide eyes. Clarke plays with Lexa’s fingers for a few moments before interlacing them.

“I can’t believe that just happened? I can’t explain how happy I am right now.”

“You don’t need to explain. I can see how happy you are.” And it’s true because Clarke is smiling that Glowing Smile Reserved For Lexa Woods and she feels it too.