i.
"I just think the whole thing is bogus," she proclaims, her lips pursing together as she tried to not get irritated at the low murmurs and eye rolls sent her way. "My life shouldn't be dedicated to whether or not I find my soulmate, that's all I'm trying to say. What happened to career driven women? I want to focus on being the best I can be, not being someone's someone fated."
Sipping from her wine glass Clarke took a moment to watch the flicker of disappointment in her friends' eyes before she let her gaze fall on Raven; the only friend she knew that would support her in this, the only friend that thought the inevitability of soulmates was ridiculous. She'd used Raven more than once in her debates; citing that the girl was her soulmate despite her counter still ticking. Sure maybe they weren't destined in the traditional sense of true love and all that bullshit, but they were fated in the sense that they were destined to meet and be in one anothers lives forever. Sure they weren't the others 'true love'-whatever that was, Clarke scoffed-but they were inevitable too. Clarke argued that soulmates were people who entered your life, for better or for worse, and changed it irrevocably regardless of the timer on your wrist.
Octavia sighed, ignoring Raven as she slammed her glass on the table with a drunken, albeit sincere, 'hear hear' at Clarke's words and gave her a slow look. "You can't close yourself off like that though. What if you meet your soulmate but you're too focused on everything else to notice and they leave?"
"I think you're missing the point, O," Bellamy piped up from the other side of his sister before he focused his attention on Raven, giving her a meaningful look and turning his wrist over to show his faded numbers. "Fate lets you know when you've met your soulmate, whether they are ready for that commitment or not."
An uncomfortable silence took over the table for a minute longer than what would be deemed polite before Clarke cleared her throat, freeing her friend from any more unnecessary attention. "Exactly. I'm just saying I'm not breaking any laws by not listening to this thing. I just want to focus on myself, on having fun, and if I meet my soulmate then fine but if we never cross paths then I'm not going to spend my life searching. You were one of the lucky ones Octavia," Clarke continued, attempting to ignore how Bellamy lost himself in his beer and Raven found an interesting article on her phone, "You found Lincoln in High School, you never had to search. But me? I'm fine without knowing my fate."
Her words, however powerful, didn't stop the itch on her wrist.
ii.
Lexa watched the blue-grey smoke rise from between dark fingertips and she wondered, briefly, if this is what it felt like to be hypnotized. The way they were laid was a fucking cliche but she kind of loved it; she loved how the bright white sheets covered most of Costia except for the knee she had propped up and her slender, yet strong, shoulders. She loved how the double doors onto the tiny balcony were open just enough to let in little sighs of the warm Paris breeze, billowing the thin curtains into the room and the morning sun casting fingertip shadows over everything.
From where Costia had her wrist perched on her knee, the cigarette still smoldering between her fingers, Lexa could clearly see her timer still counting down slowly; ticking away, breaking off a piece of her future bit by bit. Neither girl really believed in the soulmate story and yet, sometimes, usually on the darkest of nights when even the warmest sheets couldn't warm her chilled body, Lexa wished Costia's timer would have hit 00:00:00 the moment they'd met on that rainy street in France.
But it hadn't and Lexa had ignored the fluttering of her heart and how her stomach dropped when the tall beauty had smiled at her.
Costia turned her dark eyes to her, her thick Parisian accent making Lexa ache from her mouth to her thighs, and asked slowly (almost as if she didn't care but Lexa knew, she knew, she knew, she knew), "When do you leave?"
She dug her nails into her scalp as she thought about her answer. As the only biological daughter to one Gustus Jarrah, the most prolific fashion designer of the times, she knew she had to return to America and be seen as soon as possible - and yet. She wanted to stay, to erase the idea of timers and soulmates and simply live in the bubble of French chic and smoke and sex. Of course she had a duty, her fathers new line was appearing and there were only so many Snapchat filters she could entertain her fans with, but that meant nothing as of that moment.
Sure love was weakness, it could bring great men to their knees, but maybe for a moment it could give her the strength to do whatever she wanted and stop obeying orders she never truly wanted to obey.
"Friday."
Costia let out a stream of smoke so perfect that Lexa almost slapped herself for thinking it. "Then we still have time, hodnes."
It wasn't perfect, or fate, and Costia definitely wasn't speaking French just then but it was Lexa's now, and that was enough.
iii.
Clarke paid little to no attention to the numbers on her wrist and only noticed the change when Octavia slapped her arm, hard, and pointed it out. The girl yelped at her, asked questions about what decisions she'd made or what she'd changed, and Clarke only stared at her blankly and gave her friend a swift shrug. Nothing had changed, she hadn't done anything differently, but even she couldn't deny the swoop in her stomach as she watched the numbers gently descend on her wrist. They'd been changing slowly, nothing noticeable for a long time, just letting her know that another day had passed but now the hours were changing rapidly and she had to wonder what had happened.
Where had this person been? What had they done? Did they notice the change too?
Shaking her head at herself, because what kind of idiot thought about those things, Clarke focused once more on Finn and shifted away from Octavia who was still poking at her wrist like it would hurry up the process; this moment, it seemed, her best friend had been waiting for for years.
("You're twenty-five years old, Clarke. It has to happen soon, right?")
Finn spoke eloquently, but in the way it was forced-like he was trying to remember how to do it, and Clarke liked how his lips lifted in a boyish way and how he ran his hand through his hair when he was nervous and not willing to admit it. She'd noted his numbers were far from the same place as hers, like they were on two different paths in life, but reminded herself that it didn't matter; soulmates, the ones fated to them by some fucked up genetic logic, didn't always mean your one true love and maybe Clarke's soulmate, and Finn's, would be a passing phase. Maybe she could forge her own happiness instead of having it thrust upon her when fate finally allowed.
When the man stood up to use the bathroom Clarke whipped around, glaring at Octavia before sending Lincoln such a helpless look that she almost felt sorry for herself at the reflection in his eyes. "She just wants you to find happiness," he reminded her evenly, his voice as soothing as it had always been and Clarke appreciated, for the first time, that fate had brought this man into her life. His arm moved around Octavia's shoulder gently and urged her away from staring at Clarke's wrist, "But maybe that's enough. You're making Finn uncomfortable."
"Good," Octavia decided, a swift nod of her head letting everyone know she wasn't sorry for doing it. "Your timer is moving quicker than it ever has before, Griffin. How are you not more excited? You could wake up tomorrow and find you only have hours left to meet your soulmate."
Clarke scoffed, the sound echoing into her martini glass, and she let her eyes focus on the handsome form of her date as he made his way back to their table. "Let's come back to that conversation tomorrow," she whispered, "For now though I'm just going to enjoy the rest of the night, okay?"
iv.
"Get off," Lexa huffed, irritated at the weight on her shoulder and hip at such an early hour in the morning. When the weight refused to move-she should have known-Lexa cracked on eye open and tilted her head, noting that the woman was just one inch too far to land a good slap. "Seriously, Anya, move. Get the hell off of me."
Anya smirked, staring at her for a long time, before she finally lifted her weight from her sister and sat at the edge of her bed. "Dad wants you in dress rehearsal by one," she told her, hardly introducing the topic and veering far away from any greeting or forced "I've missed you"s. Sure they were close, as close as two girls could be when one was the bi-product of an affair and a broken marriage, but neither were very good at the feelings thing just yet.
"What time is it now?"
"Nine."
"Then leave me alone for another three hours."
Ignoring her sister, as always, Anya moved across the room and smiled in satisfaction as the sound of her heels clicking on the hardwood floor only served to make her younger sister groan hard in frustration. Swiftly she opened her curtains, taking a second to take in the view of New York that the penthouse offered, and she opened the doors to let in as much "fresh" air as she could.
"Jetlag does nothing for you," Anya quipped before turning around, Lexa noting through her cracked eyes that the woman was already dressed and held two phones and a day planner in her hands. How the fuck did she even open the..? Whatever, Lexa groaned. Her sister was magic. "You needed to be in the gym an hour ago, Lexa. Move."
"I'm exhausted, Ahn. Give me a break." Despite the arguments Lexa pushed herself out of the bed, knowing that if she didn't do it now she never would, and she stood at the side of the bed for a few seconds as she regained her balance. "My flight landed at two this morning."
"Not my problem," the older woman shrugged. "We told you that you had until Wednesday, Lexa. You were the one who extended your trip out there; it's your own fault and, honestly, I just can't find it in me to feel bad for you. Suck it up, get ready and hit the gym. Lincoln is expecting you. We have too much to do today and you have an interview we desperately need to make if we're ever going to promote this line for dad."
Technically, she grumbled as she moved to the shower to wash the airplane air and night sweat from her body, it was Costia and her tongue that had kept her in Paris two days too long. Costia and that long hair that Lexa couldn't help but bury herself into, Costia and her smile, her hands, her beauty. She was intoxicating and, truly, Lexa couldn't be blamed for wanting to extend her vacation just a little.
She was only human.
It was in the process of dragging her fingers through her hair that she noticed the change, her eyes catching the numbers of her wrist through the steam of the shower and she stuttered on a breath. They'd changed, she noted. Before they had more time on them than she could bother to notice but now, now they were counting down like a honest to God timer and judging by the number she had just over a day.
Well, that wasn't good.
v.
Lincoln laughed into the phone as he waited for Lexa to arrive, his smile almost breaking Clarke's heart with how genuine it was for her friend, and she continued to punch at the punching bag while she waited. The famed Lexa, the supermodel who everyone was desperate to be, was apparently turning up today and yet Clarke had yet to even catch a glimpse of her arrival. It wasn't that she particularly wanted to meet her but she had challenged Lincoln to his truth-telling abilities when he'd let slip he was a personal trainer to the stars and this had been her opportunity to see if he was just joking around or being serious.
He was a total liar, she decided.
"Octavia wants to know what your numbers say now," he called across to Clarke, capturing her attention and choosing not to tell Octavia about the gesture the blonde sent her way. "And stop hitting with the side of your hand. You're going to break your fingers."
In truth Clarke knew exactly what her numbers said. She'd woken up that morning with the urge to look at them and, as she'd pulled her arm from beneath the naked torso of Finn, she'd noted how the time had quite clearly said twenty-four hours.
A day. She had a day to meet her soulmate and, for the first time in her life, she felt sick.
"Tell her I'm going to work and to get another hobby," she grunted, pulling the boxing gloves from her fingers with her teeth and letting them drop to the floor. "And let her know you're such a liar. Lexa works out here, my ass buddy. The closest thing you'll get to meeting that girl is the poster you have of her in your office."
As Clarke left she felt a familiar burning sensation in her wrist, enough of a burn for her to look down, and her eyes widened as the numbers began to race once more to their destined end of 00:00:00. Her soulmate was, apparently, very close and just that thought made her stomach clench and her chest tighten. A fear gripped her and she panicked, suddenly afraid of the one inevitability she'd been told all of her life to expect, and she bolted from the building before she could really focus. The busy street hardly stopped her fast-paced steps and she only briefly noticed the black car that pulled up in front of the gym, only glimpsed at the legs that stepped out of the car and she turned a corner quickly as she forced herself to keep moving forward.
Hours later, when she looked at her wrist again while at work and sufficiently distracted, she heaved a sigh of relief to see that the numbers had resumed their gentle pace once more.
And she had to wonder, just how close had her soulmate been earlier that day?
vi.
Lexa watched with a barely concealed smirk as her sister launched into one of the funniest tirades she had ever witnessed her in her life. The poor guy quivered in front of her as Anya continued to berate him, questioning his ability to function and perform. Green eyes flickered from the scene, to her make up artist with amusement, as the rant finally came to a close and Anya stomped towards her chair.
"Was your coffee too caffeinated?" Lexa asked, unable to help her sarcastic streak and reveling in the glare she got in return for her efforts. "Wait, no, did he not get you that piece of paper that you had in your hand that one time last week?"
Anya rolled her eyes and Lexa smiled in victory. "He didn't call the caterers," she finally sighed, almost admitting that her tirade had been a little unjust before she reminded herself that, no, she was never wrong and this was why they were all so successful. "I told him if he wanted to deal with fifteen starving models then fine but I'm not willing to put my life on the line like that."
"Have you seen us, Ahn? We're always starving," Lexa replied glibly, ignoring the tut of her makeup artist and she gave her a sister a softer look. "Listen, I'll go to that deli down the block okay? I'll order some things and have them deliver it in an hour or so."
"You can't leave the set. Dad-" Anya stopped, looking at Indra as she continued to pat foundation into the tray and quickly rectified her mistake. "Gustus won't allow it. You need to be around for nature portion of the shoot, you know that."
Lexa rolled her eyes which only resulted in Indra grabbing her by her chin and pulling her forward, muttering something about staying still and giving Lexa a look that was terrifying enough to make her want to plan her own funeral. "Please? I need some air. I think the makeup fumes are making me dizzy," she asked, looking at her sister through the mirror. She didn't add that her timer was ticking away slowly, that she was terrified her "soulmate" was in this building somewhere, and that she needed to breathe. "I'll be back and you know it. Echo and Harper are up first anyway, they need to get the walk down. I'll be twenty minutes."
After staring at Lexa silently for long enough that the girl was beginning to worry that her sister had had a stroke, Anya nodded, "Although, this is the interns job. We don't pay you millions to order pastries, Lexa."
"No, but I don't think that other one is ever coming back so I'm your next best thing."
Clarke looked up as the bell above the door chimed and she almost cursed the customer, irritated she had to stop her stencil drawings just to serve and wrap some food that the idiot could have made at home.
Wait, no. Customer service.
Go.
"Welcome to Blake's, what can I -" Clarke felt her eyes go wide and, honestly, she wanted to punch herself. Even if she'd tried she was sure she couldn't have gotten anymore "Teen Rom-Com" than she had right then and for a minute she genuinely waited for the cheesy music to begin. "You're Lexa."
The brunette smiled once, nodding, "I am."
"Oh."
"Yes."
Clarke nodded at her, almost impressed, before she remembered with a start that she was supposed to be working and she gestured to the counter with a small grin. "I suppose you want to order something, right?"
"Well I didn't come here for the small talk," she said, rectifying her sentence when she saw a flutter of annoyance on the girls face. "Although I suppose it's a nice bonus. But I'm kind of on a lunch run and it's a rather large order, if that is okay?"
Letting out a noise that Clarke hoped wasn't too embarrassing she reached into her apron, pulling out a notebook and signalling with it that she'd take the woman's order. She jotted down the items, only briefly grinning to herself that she was talking to Lexa, fuck Lexa, and she tried desperately to not stare at the beauty in front of her. She was glad that the store was quiet for once, that they were the only two there, because her red flush and blatant embarrassment was a little too much.
"Okay, so you'll have someone come and pick this up at one?"
"Yes."
Clarke finally looked up at the woman, glancing through eyelashes and asked, breathier than she anticipated, "Will it be you coming back?"
That seemed to break the woman's cool demeanor and she looked down to hide her faint smile, shaking her head a little. Fuck, she was adorable. And famous. Damn it. "No, I have to work but I'm sure the next person sent will be better at this small talk than I am."
"You're doing okay," Clarke lied, reaching her hand out. "Since I already know you I'm Clarke."
Lexa shook her hand, a smile lifting the left side of her lips. "At least I know you wear the correct name badge to work then, Clarke." After a moment she let go of the girls hand, letting it drop and bringing her other to rub at her wrist nervously. "Not that I was looking at your chest."
"I wouldn't blame you, it's pretty great."
The sound Lexa made when she laughed made a knot form in Clarke's stomach and she bit her lip, trying to not let it show, and instead she rubbed her hands together briefly. She'd yet to do anything useful and with New York being, well, New York she knew this quiet wouldn't last much longer; the door would swing open, the office lunch hours would star, and Lexa would be lost to the crowds again.
"Shit," Clarke looked up to see the other woman, her eyes wide, and she blinked quickly. "I told Anya I'd be back to shoot already. I should go."
"Yes," the blonde nodded, rushing for an excuse to keep the model, the beauty, this fucking angel in her company a little longer. "I'll get your order ready for you. So, y'know, you're not waiting. And stuff."
"Thank you," Lexa breathed out nervously, her hand coming up to run through her hair and the sight caught in Clarke's chest. "I should go."
"You've said that."
"I know."
Finally, finally, Lexa moved and it was then, only then, on a crowded New York street did she finally look down to the irritated skin of her wrist; the wrist she'd been rubbing nervously, the wrist she'd ignored most of her life.
The wrist that blatantly stared back at her with the numbers: 00:00:00.
Her head twisted harshly and she looked back at the store, the heavy wooden door opening as Clarke stood there, her own fingers wrapped around her wrist and they stared at each other for a moment too long to be civil.
"I should probably come back and pick up those sandwiches, huh?"
And, finally, Clarke believed in fate.
NOTES: If you have any questions or prompts you can find me at brokendevilwrites on Tumblr. Thank you for reading.