A/N: Hey guys! SO sorry that I haven't put this story up yet - to make up for the wait, I'll post the whole thing today. :)
This is the third installment to Ameliorate, so if you haven't read Pristine and Nascent yet, you'll wanna do that first!
Hope you all have a lovely week, and to those of you in the US, a happy thanksgiving :) (PS: I'm thankful for all of you xx)
Lexa fumbled with the keys in her hand for a moment, before unlocking and pushing open the door to the apartment. It had been a long day of work, and she honestly was ready to strip off her clothes and take a hot bath. Unfortunately, something would keep her from doing so yet, and that something was laying across the couch in the living room with her laptop on her lap.
"Hey roomie!" Raven exclaimed with a wide grin. "How was work?"
"Long," Lexa answered with a short exhale. "Don't get me wrong, this internship is great, especially since it's paid. But learning while working is so much more complicated than one or the other."
Raven hummed thoughtfully and nodded. "I mean, that makes sense. You get to do both again soon, though, how fun is that. Are you excited for Monday?"
"For the most part," Lexa replied, going to sit next to her friend. "I mean, I'm a little nervous about starting classes at NYU. Oh, but I am happy that you'll be moving out of here on Friday." She smiled a teasing grin, and Raven rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, yeah. Same, though, honestly. I'm tired of this couch. Can't wait for a real fucking bed again. Not that it really affects your life very much. I mean, you haven't skimped on the loud sex, or excessive cuteness, or anything."
"No, but we did have to wear clothes every time we left the bedroom," Lexa justified.
Raven rolled her eyes. "Please, I've seen Clarke naked before. You two could've strolled around in your birthday suits. I would've gotten used to it." Lexa furrowed her eyebrows as Raven looked at her in mock seriousness.
"You're ridiculous." Lexa stood again and began to make her way to kitchen. "Are you excited for Monday?"
"Hell yeah!" Raven did actually sound genuinely excited. "It's the beginning of my last fucking year of school, of course I'm excited. I'm starting to get why Clarke and Luna were so happy with two year degrees. I'm so ready to no longer be stuck doing school all the goddamn time. What are you grabbing from the fridge?"
"Beer, you want one?"
"Yes please!"
Lexa grabbed two beers from the fridge and then went back into the living area, passing one to the older brunette. "Clarke is bringing pizza, by the way."
"Awesome. Living with you two is the best. All you ever eat is takeout and pizza."
"That's not true."
"It really is."
"Okay well, neither of us can cook at all. It's basically ingrained in our genetics that we can't cook. At least it is for me. My mother has tried to learn how to cook so many times, and failed. Clarke... well, Abby doesn't seem soft enough to enjoy cooking, and the only way I can imagine her doing so would be if she was the chef of a fancy restaurant – yelling at everyone the whole time," Lexa thought aloud, frowning.
Raven released a loud laugh at the thought. "Oh god, I can totally picture that. I never actually met Abby, but I've seen pictures of her and well, I have a pretty good idea of how she acts based on all of the shit I've heard you and Clarke say about her."
"She's not a very fun person."
The door suddenly swung open again, and Clarke pushed her way into the room, carrying a box of pizza with her. "I hate driving in this city."
"As long as that's the only thing that you hate," Raven chimed, "gimme pizza!"
Clarke set the box down on the little dining table and looked Raven with a pointed expression. "You can have pizza if you've done your chores."
Raven pouted. "But mom."
"You guys are so weird," Lexa said, rolling her eyes. Blue eyes turned to look at the younger brunette and Clarke immediately grinned.
"Hey," she said softly, stepping forward and pressing her lips against Lexa's. Lexa hummed contently against them, leaning into the blonde and forgetting that she had a beer can in her hand, which nearly spilled everywhere. When Clarke's tongue slid between Lexa's lips tentatively, they were broken out of their reverie by Raven coughing awkwardly.
"Okay you two, you only have to deal with me for a couple more days," she muttered dejectedly. Clarke pulled away from Lexa and they both rolled their eyes simultaneously at their friend, who was now walking over to the table to claim her slices of pizza.
"How was your guys' days?" Clarke asked, and she also took a seat at the table. Lexa took the liberty of grabbing her girlfriend a drink before doing the same.
"Mine was long," Lexa answered lamely.
Raven shrugged. "I had work, and then I came home and saw an email from NYU. Gave me the whole rundown on move-in day and how to sign up for all the clubs and shit on campus. I feel like a freshman again."
Lexa groaned. "Now I don't want to check my email."
"Hey, you don't have to turn up on campus until Monday."
"Not true," Lexa argued, "because I have to go pick up my finalized class schedule and everything on Saturday, same as you. Difference is, I get to come back here afterward, and you'll be staying on campus in a tiny dorm room."
"I'm excited for my tiny dorm room, thank you very much."
Clarke laughed. "I don't envy either of you. I'm very happy to wake up every morning and go work in a beautiful gallery, where I don't have to learn stuff and hand in pointless assignments."
"Yeah yeah, college isn't for you and you're three years out of it, we get it," Raven muttered with a shake of her head.
"Not a full three years yet," Clarke corrected, though she was smirking knowingly.
Lexa made an indignant noise. "I like school," she admitted, grabbing a piece of pizza. "I mean, it's a lot of work, but I like it."
"Wow, that's so surprising," Raven deadpanned, and Lexa glared at her. "What? It's not like we thought you hated school. School's literally your entire life. You're the biggest nerd that I know."
"Hey, don't be meant to my girlfriend," Clarke snapped, and Raven grinned at her.
Lexa rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I know that I'm a nerd. But school is not literally my entire life."
"Yeah, I know, fifty percent of your life is fucking Clarke." Clarke and Lexa's jaws both dropped, and Raven just stuffed some pizza in her mouth. "What?" she demanded with her mouth full. "It's true."
Half an hour later finally found Clarke and Lexa in their bedroom, and Raven announced that she was going to go over to Monty, Jasper and Bellamy's place for the evening. Their apartment was relatively close to the boys' place, and it was also not too far from Octavia and Lincoln's place. They intentionally tried to find apartments pretty close to one another. They were only a short drive away from campus – since Monty and Lexa would both have to drive there every day – which was nice considering that Raven would also be living there now.
"How was your day?" Lexa asked Clarke as she stepped into the bathroom to take down her hair from the ponytail that it had been held in.
"Nice," Clarke replied, joining her in front of the bathroom mirror. "Some investors came into the gallery today and my boss let me talk to them, which was cool. They were interested in some of my work, too, so I gave them my card. They'll probably forget and never look, but it's still nice that they asked."
"Please, how could they forget a face like yours?" Lexa rolled her eyes, pleased to see a smile spread across her girlfriend's face as she did so. "Well, that's awesome either way. I still think it's lame that you haven't gotten to put anything up at the gallery even though you work there."
Clarke shrugged, leaning forward against the counter. "I don't know, I guess it makes sense. I'm still up and coming, I guess. The gallery is full of art from people who have been popular for a while."
"You've been selling your art for years, though," Lexa argued. "Just because you were doing it on etsy shouldn't lessen that."
"You're probably right, but I'm content to wait," Clarke said softly. "Why was your day long? Was it bad?"
"No, just really tiring. Every day interning at the office is either really exciting or really stressful. I guess it's because since I don't yet have a degree, there are lots of things that I can't really do when I'm there, but a whole lot for me to learn while they make me do things that I can do... I don't know, I love it, but I just wanna take a long, hot bath now and sleep," Lexa admitted.
Clarke's lips turned up into a soft smile, moving over to the shower bath and running the water to fill up the tub. "Let's take a bath then."
They stripped out of their clothes pretty quickly, eyes lingering on each other's naked forms without shame, while the water ran. A few minutes later, they were settled in the hot water, Lexa lying between Clarke's legs comfortably. They laid there quietly for a good few minutes, soaking in the water pleasantly, before Lexa finally spoke again. "I'm kind of nervous to start classes."
"What? Why?"
"I'm not going to know anybody," Lexa admitted. "Starting college at Polis was easy. Lots of the people that I'd known through high school were going to be going there – including Anya and Luna. And the campus wasn't too huge, so even if I wasn't close to one of them, there was always someone else I knew close by. Or even my mom. But now, Raven and Monty will be in a totally different part of campus than me, and I'll be in classes with all new faces."
"I'm sure you'll be okay, though," Clarke reassured her, "I mean, you're awesome, so they're all going to love you. And I'm sure there are quite a few people who transfer every year, or switch majors, who also won't know everyone. There's probably no need to be nervous."
"Yeah, you're probably right. At least I'm not living on campus. If I had to get used to having another awful roommate like before, I might've died."
Clarke chuckled. "Well we definitely can't have that. Plus, I think I'm quite happy with you living with me, and not with some terrible human being in a tiny little dorm room."
"Yes, you're definitely preferable to something like that."
They were quiet again, and Lexa sighed happily as she melted into Clarke's embrace, the blonde's arms wrapping around her tightly. "I love you," the blonde murmured softly, and Lexa felt a smile appearing on her lips involuntarily.
"I love you, too."
"Is that everything?" Clarke asked, crossing her arms over her chest as she glanced at the suitcases surrounding her friend. Raven didn't really have any furniture to move – considering that she was moving into a furnished dorm room, of course – so it was just her suitcases of clothes and things that they were worried about. Plus, it wasn't like she couldn't come back later to get anything if she'd forgotten. Still, Clarke had taken off work to help her friend move into the dorm at NYU.
"Yep," Raven confirmed. "Let's go toss it in your car and you can follow me to the dorm."
"Sure." They grabbed up all of the suitcases and pulled them down the hallway from apartment number 307 – the seventh apartment on the third floor, that is – and then down the elevator. That was one nice thing about this apartment building – there was actually an elevator. After having to deal with just one flight of stairs at their old place, Clarke was more than happy to not have to deal with three now.
They set all of Raven's suitcases into the back of Clarke's car once they'd gotten to it. There was a parking garage of sorts under the apartment building, which was really nice. They only had two parking spaces, which made parking Raven's car pretty difficult, but the brunette had gotten very good at spot hopping.
Clarke drove her car behind Raven's, through the ever busy city, until they were on the NYU campus and approaching the dorm buildings. It was upperclassmen move in day, from what Clarke understood, so most of the freshmen would've already moved in a few days prior. However, there were a plethora of upperclassmen moving in, so Raven and Clarke were not alone in lugging bags up into dorm rooms.
When they got to Raven's room, she let out a relieved breath. "I'm so glad I have a single room. Can you imagine if I had to fucking share with someone? Never again."
Clarke smirked. "It's a wonder that you managed to handle sharing an apartment with me and Lexa for a whole summer."
"Yeah, whatever," Raven muttered, rolling her eyes. "I actually like you guys, so it wasn't so bad." She dropped the bags she was carrying onto her bed, and Clarke set the other bags down on the ground. "Oh, by the way, next Saturday, Octavia is making us all go out for like, and end of summer celebration or something. Don't ask me why. I think she's bummed that we've all been so busy working and shit."
"We haven't gotten to all hang out very much at once this summer, so I understand where she's coming from. Is everyone going?"
"Yeah, Monty confirmed that the guys will be there. And obviously Lincoln and O. You and Lexa are the last of all of us to confirm."
"Considering that we didn't know about it before you just told me right now, I have to say that I'm not really surprised," Clarke bounced back, shaking her head. "I'll let Lexa know. We should be good that Saturday. Lexa doesn't work on the weekends, so as long as her first week of classes doesn't leave her with two days worth of homework."
Raven nodded. "Cool. Just let O know." She stretched her arms up over her head and looked around the room. "Thanks for helping me bring all this shit here. I feel at home already."
"You'd feel at home almost anywhere," Clarke reasoned with a raised eyebrow.
"Whatever. I'll see you later, C. I know you wanna get home and paint your heart out."
A smile materialized on Clarke's face. "I kinda do. See you, Rae."
"How was your first week?" Lexa asked Anya through her car's blue tooth as she drove home from work. Polis U had started classes a week earlier than NYU, so Anya had already been roped once again into the swing of things.
"Fine," Anya replied lamely. "I mean, definitely not bad. But that guy Luke that I went out with in January is in one of my classes, and he started asking me why I stopped talking to him."
"Sounds... fun."
"Don't even try," Anya groaned. "It was so awful. I literally just stopped talking to him, and started sitting on the other side of the classroom from him last year. At the time, he just kind of accepted it and we didn't talk. I bet we both just hoped we wouldn't end up in a class together again."
"It's not like there are that many people at Polis U in pre-law," Lexa reminded her friend.
"Yeah well. He asked me if he'd done something wrong, and I just gave him a vague answer about being interested in someone else at the time, and it being complicated. He seemed to accept that."
Lexa hummed thoughtfully, wondering how to word the question that she wanted to ask. "So. Speaking of that. Have you and Luna uncomplicated things yet?"
"Things have been uncomplicated for a while."
"No, not true," Lexa denied, rolling her eyes. "Sure, it's good that you two got over your fight and started actually allowing yourself to feel emotions – and when I mean you two, I mean you... That wasn't what I meant, though. I mean have you two gotten over yourself and just admitted that you two are dating, as girlfriends?"
Anya scoffed. "Just because we haven't labeled what we're doing doesn't mean we aren't dating. Obviously we're dating. We don't have to be girlfriends to do that."
"No, but you two are clearly in love with each other. I mean, I know that Luna loves you, and just because you're too scared to say it doesn't mean that you aren't too."
"Look, Lexa, I can't go any faster than my max speed, okay? I know how I feel about Luna, and she knows too. Even if I haven't explicitly said it, she knows. And when I'm ready to say it, I will. There are a lot of other factors to my relationship with her, okay?"
Lexa bit down on her lip, trying to keep herself from starting anything. What she wanted to ask next was if the other factors included her family, which she knew the answer to. Anya's parents would very likely not approve of her dating a girl, and they were the reason that Anya had spent so long in denial about the fact that she had feelings for Luna. Luna, as in love as she was, was seemingly fine with going at Anya's pace, but Lexa knew that even Luna had limits. She was worried that her best friends would end up resenting each other, and she wished that she could help prevent it. "Okay," she finally said. "I should probably go, I'm almost home, and I'm surprising Clarke with Chipotle."
"Of course you are," Anya teased. "I'll text you later. I expect to hear about your class schedule and whatnot tomorrow!"
"Sure, bye!"
"Bye!" Lexa quickly hit the button on the dashboard to end the call before refocusing entirely on the road. One reason that she was excited to start classes at NYU was that it was pretty close to her work, so she wouldn't have to drive from one to the other. She was planning on walking from one to the other around her schedule, and then back to whichever place her car was at. Or, depending on how her schedule ended up, she might see if Clarke could drop her off and pick her up on some days. Her girlfriend did drive past the main campus on her way to work every day.
Smiling to herself, she pulled into the parking garage for the apartment building. The summer had been great – focusing on interning while Clarke got a job at an art gallery while still creating and selling her own artwork. But she was definitely excited to continue school here in New York – which was feeling more and more like home as time passed.
