For Clarke, the best part of finishing high school and having a little break before college classes begin, indeed, is to finally be able to sleep her ass off. To sleep until her body feels like it's too much and she wakes in the middle of the afternoon feeling dizzy and guilty that she's lost half of her day already, but satisfied as hell with that.

That's all she has been dreaming about these last months, actually. A little break from her life to sleep, be lazy and get her energies back on track.

A little break from her busy social life, from Finn and from all the shit she needs to deal with daily. Just her, in her bedroom, with her sketchbook, her computer, and her guitar.

Not that she hated her high school years, sure she was one of the most popular girls, she had good friends, she was the prom queen and dated the most popular guy in school as well, but she secretly always wanted that phase to end. It all felt superfluous, pretended. She knew all that bullshit of being a big deal at school would end as soon as the classes ended.

And she was right.

She always wanted to go to college. Move out, be more independent. She calls it a personal feng-shui of life, as she wrote in her old journal that she keeps in her nightstand, besides her bed.

It's a simple wish, Clarke reasons. But, even so, seems like the world won't let her have it.

It's not even Abby's fault.

It's the universe that has something against everything that Clarke plans.

Or maybe it's just her moody state of mind at the moment that's saying it.

"Clarke," she hears her mom's voice echoes in the back of her head, but it's not until she feels cold hands on her arm that she decides to open her eyes for a second. Abby is blurry but Clarke can see she's wearing her work uniform.

Her mom has a good job as the therapist of prisoners of the state, since as long as Clarke can remember. She still doesn't really understand what her mom does at work, she knows she is a therapist, but Abby never really got into details. There's this unspoken barrier between an adult and a child's reality, Clarke just accepted that she wasn't needed to understand it all. Still, the only thing she knows is that Abby is quite skilled considering the number of times she was required to the workstation in the middle of the night in the past before her father died.

"Clarke, wake up!"

Clarke lets out a groan and rolls onto the side, facing the wall and wishing that this could maybe make her mom go away.

"Honey, it's serious."

Clarke knows that tone. She gives in and rolls back to face Abby with only one eye opened. "What?"

"I need to go to the police station," Abby pulls Clarke's blanket over her bare shoulder. "I'd very much like to ask you to take care of yourself and call me if you need. I don't know how long I'll stay there this time."

"So you woke me up," Clarke says without missing a beat. "To just tell me that? Really?"

Abby sighs. "Don't be like this."

"What time is it?"

"It's three in the morning," Abby answers. "Please, call me if you need."

"Mom," Clarke buries her face in her pillow. "I'm 18," she says like if that means she's a boss ass adult. "I'll be fine."

Abby's heart hurt a little bit because deep down inside her heart she knows it is true. Clarke has always been perfectly capable of taking care of herself, even when she was a kid. Even after all the shit that they had been through.

She kisses Clarke's blonde head before unnecessarily pulling up her blanket one more time.

"I know."


[12:00pm] from Rae:
Hey, I'm coming over, ok?

[12:42pm] from Rae:
?

[1:15pm] from Rae:
FFS, you're still sleeping, right?

[1:15pm] from Rae:
You're such a lazy ass

[2:05] from Rae:
You're disgusting

It's 4:24pm now.

A grin curls Clarke's lips as she reads all the eleven messages from Raven. She loves how, even before she gets up, Raven can make her smile.

Even if it is with painful truths.

Those were the only notifications that she had on her cell phone, though. No sign of her mom, her other friends or Finn.

She gives a sarcastic laugh to herself.

Prom queen days are so over.

Before she could overanalyze about how disappointed, but not surprised, she has been feeling, she accidently hits the front camera button. It reveals a beast that should not be named, and yet very tamed.

"What the hell," Clarke flinches at the sight of her own face.

Her hair bun looks gross and she has smeared mascara around her eyes. She needs a shower before she intoxicates the neighborhood with the scent of someone who passed the last two days too busy sleeping, eating and painting to actually shower.

Clarke often gets mistaken for a temporary social introvert, but she really just takes break times very seriously. During the week she barely leaves the house.

At weekends, however, she gets back being the popular party girl she is.

Or she used to be.


It takes her actual thirty minutes to shower. Ten minutes to essentially get clean, twenty to hum songs and decide between cooking some Mac n' Cheese or baking a chocolate cake to feed herself when she goes downstairs since it is more probable that Abby's still at work.

She didn't think much about it but now she acknowledges that Abby's sudden night shift is something off. She hasn't been required in so many years. Why now?

Clarke turns off the shower. She could stress and get worried with her mother dealing with criminals, as usual, but her stomach is louder than her mind at the moment.

She needs food. Cereal, for sure.

She won't handle having to wait until she cooks something.

There's someone sitting in her kitchen's cooking island eating her cereal, judging on the loud chewing and crunching noises.

Clarke lowers her walking pace down the stairs. It could be Abby but it also could be a criminal that just happens to like to eat Lucky Charms before assaulting a house.

It has been impossible to live in this neighborhood without daily news of assaults. As a matter of fact, the whole world is getting kind of messed up.

Suddenly, she can't hear chewing noises anymore. She hears steps instead.

"Shit," Clarke mentally says. She used to be acquainted with the fear of strange people breaking into her house but if something really happens, this time, it will be a thousand times worse. She was such a bitch to her mom about her being a stupid 18-year-old independent ass. She takes one of the pins from her almost dry hair bun without thinking. Maybe it could help her stab the bastard in the eye and-

"Gotcha!" Raven jumps in front of her, causing Clarke to jump as well, followed by a screech and a bunch of dirty words. Raven looks at the pin in Clarke's hand and chuckles. "Aw, that's the tiniest sword I have ever seen."

"What the fucking fuck, Raven," Clarke angrily says as she pushes away Raven's arms that were trying to hug her. "You can't scare me like that!"

"Chill," she says, still with a playful smile on her face. "I was just in the mood of getting you pissed off."

"Yeah, well it worked, thanks," Clarke angrily puts the pin back in her hair bun and marches towards the kitchen, brushing shoulders with Raven. "And you ate all my cereal again, I bet."

"Perks of a neighbor bestie. But come on, I'm not that big of a jerk," Raven says as she follows Clarke back to the kitchen and sits back at where she was previously enjoying her and Clarke's favorite cereal. "I already prepared you a bowl."

Clarke looks at the bowl full of colored stuff that Raven is happily and dramatically pointing to and smiles. She takes a spoon and starts furiously eating it before she even sits.

"See? I'll be such a good roommate when we go to college."

"I can't deny," Clarke shakes her head, taking another spoon full of cereal into her mouth. "I mean," she tries to say and chew at the same time. "I actually was craving for cereal."

"I know," Raven does her usual smug face. "Plus, seems like you only wake up when you sense danger or cereal."

"Wait," Clarke says with her mouth full of cereal. "How long have you been here?"

"Not much," Raven rests her elbows on the surface and supports her chin with her fists, mildly judging Clarke for still having the bad habit of talking with her mouth full of food. "I went upstairs to wake you up but you were so cute and dirty, I didn't want to come near you to disturb you, at all."

Clarke rolls her eyes.

"You know, I hope someday I can get some privacy."

Raven smirks and winks at Clarke.

"Never, I hope."


"How was your trip?" Clarke says to try to begin a conversation with Raven, her legs resting on the brunette's lap. The girl is so concentrated while watching Cosmos she's not even blinking. Raven gets so absorb while watching that documentary that Clarke feels the need to break the silence every now and then. "I didn't know you were coming home today."

"Me neither," Raven answers without breaking eye contact with the TV. "But apparently, my dads had a fight. Usual stuff, you know."

Clarke nods and hums in response and looks at the TV again, trying to focus.

"I'll miss this," Clarke says a couple of seconds later.

Raven rolls her eyes because Clarke can't ever shut her mouth.

"What?"

"I'll miss us in the basement couch watching Netflix, you know," she says and lowers her head to take a little cat fur from her blue sweatpants, as a way of trying to hide her embarrassment over being overly emotional. "Making our little world down here when we were kids, learning how to play the guitar together, making imaginary sword fights, video games competitions, then all the parties, fighting over boys, I mean. We grew up here," she looks around the basement. "It's like our little home."

Clarke didn't mean to sound too emotional, but she at least expected Raven to say something cute too.

"The parties here, though," Raven smiles and Clarke chuckles, she knows Raven is too stubborn to show any emotions.

"Everything is going to change when we go to college," Clarke continues. "I don't know, I'll just miss this."

"Hey," Raven takes Clarke's hand. "But we'll still be together, facing all the new problems ahead, ok?"

"Ok."

"Good," Raven smiles, and so does Clarke. "You know how happy I am to have you, Clarke."

Clarke knows it.

She remembers the day her parents told her that the gay couple next door, the Reyes, were adopting a little girl that was 5 years old, just like Clarke at the time. Clarke was so happy. She remembers that when they went to their house to meet the new member of the Reyes family, the little girl was scared. Clarke made her feel comfortable straight away, promising her that she could borrow any toy that Clarke owned and that they would be like best friends.

And Clarke was right.

They created a bond so special, it felt like they were sisters. Sisters from another life, as they would say.

Clarke feels the only reason she is still alive after her father's death four years ago was because Raven never left her side. She wasn't even eating until Raven told her to. Clarke understood that she needed to survive to take care of Raven and Abby, and so she did.

"You know I'm happy I have you, too."

Raven opens her mouth to say something, but they hear a loud noise of breaking glass coming from inside the house.

Clarke looks to Raven, her eyes widened.

"Chill, it's Abby," Raven says as she pulls Clarke's legs off of her to get up the couch. "I'll see if she's ok."

"No, Raven," Clarke grabs the girl's arm to stop her from going away. "My mom texted me, she's not coming home in at least one and a half hour from now."

"You don't think-"

"My mom works with criminals, Raven," Clarke says. "The crazy ones, psychopaths, sociopaths, murderers. They have contacts, you know."

Raven looks to the basement door and then looks at Clarke again. She swallows, wishing that Clarke's eyes aren't telling her exactly what she's avoiding to think about.

"Oh, shit."


"We shouldn't have watched all that horror movies, man," Raven says as she carefully walks behind Clarke. "We shouldn't-

"Shut up, let me hear," Clarke presses her ear tighter against the basement door, hoping she could hear something that says it's her mom that's home and it is safe for them to go there.

"We shouldn't-," Raven starts to whisper, but Clarke gives her a deadly look at the same moment. "Ok, sorry."

"I can't hear anything."

"Have you considered that it could be Titus?"

Clarke points to the spot where her cat loves the most to hide, which is behind the bookshelf that contains all her dad's old books. "He's sleeping there, I saw him."

"Ok," Raven says. "I'm going inside."

"No!"

"We need to find out, right?" Raven puts her hand on the door handle, but Clarke slaps her hand.

"Ow!"

"Stop it," Clarke frowns her brows. "I'm not letting you go there alone."

Raven takes a deep breath, trying to calm all her nerves and gathering the courage she knows she'll be needing for the following minutes. "Together then?"

Clarke nods.

"Ok."


Raven holds Clarke's hand even tighter as they walk the corridor together towards the living room and the kitchen.

"You'll be okay," and that's the only thing that Clarke thinks about to say.

They walk to the kitchen on their tiptoes, the most probable source of that breaking glass noise, and there isn't Abby.

Nor a muscle criminal, apparently.

There's a girl in a red plaid shirt and a messy ponytail sitting right where Raven was having her cereal earlier today.

"Yo," Raven says. "What the fuck."

The girl doesn't feel scared at all at the sudden shout. She slowly turns in the chair and looks at both of them with tired eyes. Clarke instinctively places herself in front of Raven. The girl narrows her eyes, trying to analyze their features and when she notices they're holding hands, she gives a lopsided smug smile. "Cute."

Clarke and Raven look at each other. They let go of each other's hand at the same moment.

"Who are you and why are you in my house?" Clarke nervously says when she notices the girl has bandages on both her wrists. "And why- What is that?" she points to the pieces of broken glass on the floor next to her.

Abby appears in the kitchen carrying a broom in her hand. She looks at the girl and then she looks at Clarke and Raven with her eyes half-closed. "Why all the screaming?"

Although Clarke is very relieved to see the figure of her mom, she doesn't stop to think reasonably and lets her feelings speak for her. Clarke had just experienced some genuine fear, which after her nightmares and her dad, seems to be becoming her daily routine for life.

"Why all the screaming?" Clarke repeats and blinks a few times. "This freak broke into our house!"

The girl lets a laugh through her nose, not minding the previous insult. She turns in the chair and gets her attention back to eat cereal.

Clarke's cereal.

"Clarke!", Abby censors. "This is Lexa, be kind."

"Hey," Lexa says, still sitting with her back facing Clarke and Raven and eating her cereal.

Clarke is still mad.

She isn't in the mood.

"Didn't you for a second," Clarke says and Raven unconsciously takes a step back, predicting all the drama ahead. "Think to warn me that you would bring this girl home? Or even," Clarke points her finger in the direction of the basement. "At least try to find me to tell me you're home? We almost shitted our pants thinking someone was here!"

Abby looks at Lexa and shakes her head. "I'm sorry."

Clarke observes as the girl shakes her head as well, "It's ok."

"Well, I didn't see you in your bedroom and since Raven was on a trip I thought maybe you could have gone to Finn's house," Abby calmly says as she starts to sweep the broken pieces of glass towards a random spot near the trash can. "I'm sorry you got scared honey," she looks at Clarke and raises an eyebrow. "But, if you weren't sure, you could have called me or sent me a message when you heard me breaking a glass, couldn't you?" she says. "Also, how many times have I told you not to lock yourself in the basement when you're home alone?"

Clarke crosses her arms and snorts. She knows her mother is right and she knows she is acting irrationally. She actually can't think about anything that would defend her ridiculous rage towards a girl that is probably broken and her mother's patient.

She feels stupid. And it makes her feel even more annoyed.

Raven comes closer to Clarke, who's still standing there with unsteady breath and crossed arms, and whispers in her ear.

"I told you we shouldn't watch too many horror movies."

Abby laughs at Raven's comment as she finishes sweeping all those glasses, "You sure shouldn't." She puts the broom against the wall and walks to the cooking island to lean against it, her fingers interlaced together on top of the dark granite surface. "All those movies make these girls with their heads in the clouds," she says to Lexa. "I'm really sorry."

"That's ok," Lexa says as she places the spoon carefully inside the almost empty bowl. She gets up and puts it in the sink. "Can I wash it?" She innocently asks Abby.

Clarke can't help but feel deeply annoyed with the presence of this girl.

Abby shakes her hand and smiles. "Oh, leave it, honey, Clarke will wash that later."

Clarke and Raven look at each other.

"But I want to, that's not a problem, really," she insists.

"Then ok, have your fun washing the bowl while I" Abby tilts her head towards Clarke and Raven. "Go upstairs with these two to take some fluffy pillows and blankets to make your bed on the couch, for now, you must be feeling tired."

"Hey, I think my dad's calling me-"

Abby interrupts Raven at the same second.

"Both of you upstairs real quick."

Clarke's so screwed.


It's been particularly difficult to fall asleep tonight.

Clarke was annoyed, but she recognized she was being a dick. And now, after Abby explained a little bit of the situation, she feels even more of a dick.

There's a suicidal orphan girl sleeping on the couch downstairs.

Even though it explained much, it didn't explain the whole story. Clarke still had doubts in her mind. So many of them. But, different from the other times, she's actually concerned to find out what happened.

"If you apologize her, maybe she'll tell you," Abby told her.

Clarke's chest feels heavy. She feels something isn't right. She needs to do something.

She puts on her fluffy slippers and takes a deep breath, deeply wishing the girl is awake.


"You're awake," Clarke says as she walks down the stairs. Lexa's laying still on the couch, wearing one of Clarke's pajamas and admiring the pendant of own her necklace in her hands. She doesn't say a word.

Clarke swallows.

"Look," she says as she comes a little closer to the couch. "I'm sorry for earlier. I was scared, I often have nightmares of people breaking into my house."

Lexa closes her hand around the pendant before she rolls her rolls onto her side, her back facing Clarke.

Clarke raises her eyebrows. She's slightly hurt because Lexa didn't even look at her. "I get it. I was really out of line and-"

"I don't care," Lexa sharply says. "I need to sleep."

Clarke clenches her fists but accepts that. She puts a folded blanket on top of Lexa's foot and smoothes the cloth of it.

Lexa flinches at the sudden act and looks at Clarke. Her eyes look pretty scared and she lets out a sigh when she sees it's just a blanket. Clarke notices the girl really is scared and it makes her wonder what had made her so afraid of human contact and acts of caring. Clarke can see now how green her eyes are, even only by the light of a distant lamp.

"It's just a blanket," Clarke feels the need to say. "I like this green one, it's warm if you want to. Green is calming," Clarke says without thinking. She regrets it immensely now because Lexa doesn't say a thing. Big enigmatic eyes are still staring her as if she was watching her soul and judging her existence or something.

"Clarke," Lexa says, still sounding pretty snob, but Clarke tries to ignore it. "That's your name, right?"

"Yes," Clarke nods.

"Can you please leave me alone?"

Clarke opens her mouth to talk, but she gives in.

"Sure."

"Thank you, Clarke."

Clarke doesn't know if she's bad at reading people, but she's starting to think Lexa's politeness is just pure cynicism.


And suddenly, all the problems Clarke had in her life feels nothing. She can't stop thinking about how cold Lexa's eyes look, it's almost like if her soul's not even there anymore. Lexa's empty, she's just existing.

She thinks about the bandages on her wrists, her red plaid shirt, the smile she gave when she saw Raven holding her hand, her cold yet polite attitude.

Clarke honestly doesn't know if she should try to talk to Lexa again or she should just leave her alone, as she asked her to.

It takes Clarke another hour overthinking before she falls asleep.


"She's moving in with us?" Clarke asks her mom, who's sitting on her bed. She had woken Clake up to sweetly ask her to make Lexa's breakfast. Clarke agreed at the same minute and she didn't get back to sleep as well.

Abby couldn't help but feel surprised she wasn't moody this time.

"Hardly, honey. Lexa is not a minor anymore for a little while now," even though Lexa isn't around, she lowers her voice anyways. "She has a long history of running away from her fosters parents too."

"Is she downstairs?" Clarke exasperatedly asks.

"She is, I just checked her," Abby assures. "She's sleeping and she'll be hungry when she wakes up. In the case she decides to leave, you make sure she remembers she can go to my office whenever she wants to."

"But," Clarke protests. "She can't just leave. She needs shelter."

"She does," a smile curls Abby's lips, she's feeling proud at Clarke, her rebel child with a golden heart. "We'll make this house as comfortable as we can to shelter her. If she wants to stay with us until she finds her own place, good."

Clarke eagerly nods.

"I'm going to work now," Abby gets up and kisses Clarke's forehead before caressing the smooth skin of her cheek with the back of her hand. "I trust you to take care of her, ok?"

Abby doesn't even need to ask Clarke to do that.

She has never had this urge to take care of someone like this before.


Clarke carefully opens the fridge. It makes a strange noise and Clarke glares the couch from where she is. Lexa is still soundly sleeping, it doesn't even look she has tried to kill herself the day before, probably. Clarke looks to the fridge's content again, thinking that she could make a billion things so Lexa could eat. She doesn't know what she would like to eat, though. She only knows it's been a while since she had a decent breakfast.

Finally, she decides to play safe and make her some banana pancakes with chocolate syrup and iced tea. There's no one in this world that could hate banana pancakes and tea. Especially the ones made by the skillful chef, Clarke Griffin.

She rolls her eyes at her own thoughts in her head and gets back to carefully stirring the dough in the bowl. After that, she greases a frying pan and starts to cook the pancakes. She keeps glaring the couch to see if Lexa wakes up while she cooks, but she doesn't.

A couple of minutes later, Clarke has a boss ass breakfast table in front of her. She admires it while eating some berries from a small bowl. There are all kinds of fruits, iced tea, coffee, pancakes. Also scrambled eggs and bacon.

Maybe she got a little bit too excited.

She glares the couch after a little while.

And it is empty.

Clarke anticipates herself before actually looking around the house and takes her phone out of her pocket, almost in a desperate way.

[10:20 am]
Did you finish fixing you car yet?

[10:24am] from Rae:
You up? Before noon?

[10:24am] from Rae:
Who are you and what did you do with my best friend, you sick bastard?

[10:25am]
LMAO YOU'RE SO FUNNY

[10:25am]
I'm serious

[10:25am] from Rae:
Lol

[10:26am] from Rae:
It's not completely fixed but it's ok to go

[10:26am] from Rae:
Why? Party plans?

[10:27am]
Almost

[10:27am]
We're going to find Lexa

Raven doesn't respond after that, but it takes only one and a half minute until she hears the typical loud horn of Raven's old car in her garage.