A/N: Title and story inspired by the song 'Copper Down' by The Boy Who Trapped The Sun.
"So you're a pirate?" the girl asks her with a curious and excited grin.
Nine year old Lexa grits her teeth and glances around worriedly. The seagulls scream loudly and she hopes no one overheard that. "I'm not a pirate."
"But your father is Captain Gustus, right?"
Lexa sighs. This girl has been asking her questions ever since they laid anchor in the harbor and she just can't seem to get rid of her.
"He's not my father," she corrects the blonde girl who could be no older than she is, "but he is the captain of the ship, yes."
"Well, if he's not your dad, then how can you sail with them? I've never seen anyone under twelve allowed on the ships, except for Finn Collins, but his father is Captain Collins of course."
Lexa can't exactly find the answer to the girl's question and so she decides to simply not answer it. Instead, she moves towards the market stalls along the coast. There are bound to be at least some items of value that could easily be snatched up when the owner's not looking. Lexa just hopes this other girl won't cause any trouble for her.
"What is your name, by the way? I am Clarke. I am eight years old and my mom works at the hospital in town. She's a medic, you know. And how can you be a pirate already when your dad is not a captain?"
Lexa sighs, fiddling with the hilt of the small dagger on her waist. "My name is Lexa. And I'm not a pirate. I am a sailor. I don't know who my father is but Captain Gustus is my uncle."
A small emerald with an infinity symbol etched into it glistens in the sun, folded in between two silk sheets at one of the stalls. Lexa casts a glance at the stall owner but finds the woman looking straight at her already. Clarke is bouncing on her feet next to her, observing the coast with wide eyes and oblivious to Lexa's efforts on stealing something from the stalls they pass. She sighs and moves on. "Don't you need to go home to your father or something?"
Clarke falls quiet and Lexa almost frowns. She's known the girl for five minutes and already she can tell something's wrong. "No, my dad died."
"Oh."
Clarke recovers quickly from the reminder and within moments she is flashing Lexa a mischievous grin. "So can I hang out with you?"
Blue eyes sparkle and Lexa thinks it's rather odd. She's not used to people speaking to her so much, let alone want to hang out with her. Clarke talks a lot, but she's nice and Lexa finds she actually doesn't mind.
So she nods.
Lexa skims another stone across the water, letting it bounce four times. This is the third year she's spent all of her time in Arkadia with Clarke. When Gustus' ship arrived this morning, Clarke was right there at the harbor to greet her with a large smile.
Laying anchor here has become so appealing Lexa's almost starting to refer to it as coming home. Or perhaps she just really likes having a friend here.
She throws another stone across the water, smiling when it skips five times. "You know, someday I'll be captain."
Clarke hums, smoothing her pencil once more over her notebook. "Captain Lexa."
"Captain Woods," Lexa corrects her, smirking. She walks over to the tree Clarke is sitting against and plops down in front of her.
"I'll have my own ship," she tells, searching Clarke's eyes which are still drawn to the paper in her hands. "We could sail together. See the world."
Clarke looks up at her, squinting her eyes against the sun. She smiles. "Maybe we could."
Clarke's lips press against Lexa's, the noise of the tavern below making its way through the wooden floor of the inn's room. After having been walked in on y Abby Griffin in Clarke's room last year, they decided to rent a room whenever Lexa was in town instead of risking another awkward greeting with Clarke's mother.
"When will you be back again?" Clarke asks, nuzzling into the warm skin of Lexa's neck and reveling in her presence, knowing she will be gone again by tomorrow morning.
Lexa swallows. "Soon."
She attempts a smile but the heaviness of her own heart makes it hard to convince the girl she loves.
Clarke pulls back, searching her eyes. She kisses Lexa again with a knowing sigh and the brunette knows she's not fooling either of them.
"I'll wait," Clarke promises.
Clarke does wait. She always waits.
At least, as far as Lexa knows. For some reason she just doesn't doubt Clarke's love for her.
It's not until they lay anchor in the south that Lexa realizes Clarke's love might not have a lot to do with it.
Gustus had seen the looks of boys and men as Lexa grew into a young woman, but as Lexa never noticed or gave them any attention, he didn't have to do much apart from give an intimidating look in the direction of said men every once in a while.
Tondisi is different. It is there Lexa and the other sailors are approached by a group of young women, who giggle and tug on the crew members' hands, trying to guide them towards the brothel. Lexa flushes and refuses, staying to guard the ship overnight with a few other sailors instead.
Night falls and rum is poured. With a loud shout in celebration three girls from before are welcomed onto the ship, smiling seductively as the sailors tug them onto their laps.
A dark-skinned girl comes to stand before Lexa's curious eyes. Lexa had seen this before, heard the wooing of the crew when whores would come to entertain them, but it had never captured her interest.
"You the captain's daughter?" the dark girl asks her. Lexa shakes her head; for some reason people never stopped assuming she was. Lexa figures it's just unusual to find a woman on a ship these days.
"So you're crew? You get to celebrate?"
The woman's voice is husky and heavily accented. Lexa takes a deep breath, uncomfortable but not wishing to be rude to the foreign girl.
"Oi Leksa, don't keep the pretty ones all fer yerself, eh?" one of the guys shouts, eliciting a bolt of drunken, hysterical laughter from the others.
"She into girls, eh? Tha' explains why I not been getting between 'er legs," another one comments, still caught up in gasping for air in between his own chuckling.
Lexa grits her teeth. At age eighteen, she holds most of the crew's respect. They know the captain keeps a watchful eye over her, but their respect runs deeper than that; and they don't think twice about taking her orders in the middle of a storm.
Still, they're drunk and there's no reasoning with drunk, dumb sailors, so she refrains from getting into a fight with them. Instead, she averts her gaze towards the ship's deck.
"You been with a woman before?" the dark girl asks her quietly, not paying any mind to the calls coming from the other crew members.
Lexa faces the woman, trying to keep her gaze to the girl's eyes and not to the exposed skin below that. "I have a lover back home. She will be my wife someday."
The woman nods and reaches out to twirl her finger through a strand of dark hair that has loosened out of Lexa's braids. "So what do you say?"
Lexa frowns, inspecting the girl's ministrations. "I just told you."
"You just told me you have a girl on the other side of the seas. You're far away from her and you are free to do as you please, as I'm sure she is as well."
"I love her," Lexa replies, dumbstruck by how this woman cannot understand that.
"That has nothing to do with it, darling. You've left her for many weeks and every girl has desires. You do not expect her to ignore them, just because her love is overseas, do you?"
Lexa is speechless, panic overtaking her mind. She hadn't considered this.
The woman raises her eyebrows. "I'm sure she doesn't expect you to do so, either."
In the blink of an eye Lexa stands up from the barrel she was seated on, grasping a half full bottle of rum from the circle of sailors and heading towards the back of the ship.
She downs all of the drink within twenty minutes and tries to erase the image of Clarke with another one from her mind.
Gustus finds her late that evening swaying on the ship's railing, a small push away from falling overboard.
"My mom's getting married again," Clarke mumbles from behind one of the books Lexa's brought her. "Marcus Kane, everyone: Clarke Griffin's step-father to be."
Lexa raises her eyebrows, lifting herself from Clarke's bare chest. "Your mother's getting married to the governor?"
Clarke closes the book and shuffles further under their sheets again to ease the cool from her naked shoulders.
"He broke his arm," Clarke tells her, wrinkling her nose in odd amusement. "Fell from his horse. My mom patched him up and that's how their love story began."
Lexa chuckles as Clarke traces patterns on the skin of her arm. "You could've told me she was marrying him for the money and I would've bought it."
Clarke hums and leans in for a sweet kiss.
"You got a new one?" the blonde asks Lexa, motioning towards the tattoo on her arm.
"Yeah," Lexa smiles, searching Clarke's eyes for some sign of recognition. "It's the infinity symbol."
Clarke smiles and Lexa sees the glean in blue eyes the moment she understands. "Like the one you saw when we first met."
She nods. "So I don't forget."
Gustus doesn't die well. It's not in a harsh storm and with the ship, or in a battle with pirates like the crew will sing in songs. It's by a stab in the back from some rebellious, self-entitled asshole with three other crew members to back him up in his claim for captain of the ship. However, the rest of the crew doesn't complain when Lexa cuts open the rebel's neck and lets the other three be thrown overboard.
Gustus' former sailors look to her for orders and Lexa feels sick to her stomach.
This isn't the way she was supposed to become Captain.
"You could ask Marcus," Clarke mumbles into her naked skin. "He has the money, the ships, the sailors…"
Lexa studies the creases in the canopy above Clarke's bed, entranced by the beauty of her room. It reminds her of the room of a princess, and she thinks it fits. Still, it holds a tint that could only be Clarke's - an easel with a half-finished painting, a bookshelf filled with odd books that Lexa brought back from her ventures, both their clothes thrown on the floor without inhibition.
"I don't think that will work, seeing as he already dislikes me for sharing a bed with his step-daughter."
Clarke frowns, concern in her eyes. "That's no reason. You're good for his economy; he needs you for the trade on the market. I'm sure he could help."
One side of Lexa's mouth tugs up. "He thinks us pirates. Ever since Gustus' death, bad word goes around about overseas trade. Sailors are hesitant to sign up for a ship from Polis."
Lexa sighs softly and Clarke pushes herself onto her elbows. "Then quit."
"What?"
"Quit the seas. Stay here. Marcus could find you a job and I'd no longer worry about you drowning," Clarke chuckles, trying to relieve the seriousness. "You could stay with me."
Lexa breathes, averting her gaze back to the ceiling to avoid the blue eyes she so loves. Staying with Clarke sounds like a dream too good to be true. She loves the girl - Lexa has no doubt about that - like no one else. But she loves the sea, too, and Lexa is afraid she'll get restless spending too much time on the land. The sea was her first home and now she is responsible for a good amount of souls who feel the same way and call her Captain.
Gustus' ship is beautiful and Lexa has spent all her life on it, but it's old and the crew is thinning out. The lack of force is starting to wear down their trade.
"There's talk of treasure," Lexa mumbles, feeling Clarke's body settle against hers again. "Ice treasure, run aground against the coast to the north. It would buy me a new ship, a new name in trading."
Clarke is quiet and doesn't respond, other than pressing a kiss to the side of Lexa's mouth.
The sea is relentless, its waves still crashing onto the shore in loud thunders that make Lexa's stomach lurch, expecting to feel another blow hit her body. But the ground underneath her is gritty and harsh and keeps her stranded right where she is even as the water continuously washes over her drenched feet. She barely feels it anymore.
The sharp pebbles underneath her press into her skin, forming indents and drawing the slightest bloody scratches. Lexa lets it happen. She pants, trying to cough but feeling almost too tired to do so. Water dribbles from the corner of her mouth, lips parted in exhaustion. Her legs feel more numb than cold and she can't decide if that's a good thing.
Everything is chaos and she's too tired to do anything except lie still and wait for something to change.
It's twenty agonizing gasps for air later that Lexa realizes nothing's going to change. The ship crashed and she's here, clinging onto life without knowing if any of her crew survived, without knowing if she's going to make it through the next hour without falling into hypothermia, and without knowing if she'll ever get to see Clarke again.
The faces of her crew members swirl across her blurred vision and Lexa hopes against all odds that she didn't let any of her crew die. She hopes against all odds that getting caught in this storm wasn't her fault and that she didn't kill them all.
The shore is littered with pieces of driftwood and the salty, copper taste of blood invades Lexa's mouth. Rain falls around her, almost indecipherable from the crashing of waves and the sound of distant thunder fills the air.
Muscles heavy from the earlier struggle of trying to stay above water, Lexa catches sight of a nasty cut on her arm. The gash is deep and she vaguely remembers a spike of pain while trying to grab hold of the sinking ship. Although it's no longer bleeding heavily, dirt is etched in her skin and she knows she should clean it. That's what Clarke would tell her.
Still, she doesn't move. She feels like she can't.
Her eyes fall on the black infinity tattoo next to the cut and her breath freezes, remembering Clarke's eyes as they lit up when she saw it.
Lexa rolls a little further onto her back, finding the sky in her gaze. The clouds are white and gray, the depressing light matching the coldness in the air. The rocky terrain underneath her limp body is cold and wet and the only sound she can hear is the waves crashing; a white and gray thunder of noise. She lets it fill her head, lets it overshadow the harsh sound of her breathing until something switches and it's almost soothing.
The world is simple. Lexa is tired. Suddenly she is aware and appreciating the fact that she is alive; feeble as it may be. Her body feels lighter and the coldness is embracing, not blistering anymore.
The chaos disperses and Lexa becomes part of the serenity.
The burn in her arm is still there and she basks in it. The black mark branded on her arm reminds her of all that matters and the thought of Clarke is like a warm blanket.
Suddenly she has this feeling, tasting copper in her mouth. It throbs up through her stomach and she chokes on her own sob.
She looks towards the clouds for comfort and hopes she didn't let Clarke down.
When she wakes, it's to Abigail Griffin's soft eyes and a numb arm from where Clarke is sleeping with her head resting on top of it.
"You," governor Kane tells her with a shake of his head, "are an idiot."
On her insistence, he fills Lexa in on what happened; how Clarke had asked him to grant Lexa enough for a new ship, how he had sent his own ships after the Ice treasure as well, and how they had fished her drowning crew from the waters.
The large hospital room is filled with twenty more of her crew members and Lexa knows she will feel relieved about that fact later. But right now, all she remembers is the way the thought of Clarke made her feel warm inside even as she believed she was going to die.
She almost misses the governor's words as he promises her a high position in his navy, too caught up in Clarke's blue eyes that well up with tears at seeing Lexa awake.
It strikes Lexa then, that Clarke's eyes are like the very ocean itself.
And she wonders if that is why she feels at home with Clarke, or if that is why the sea has always felt like something close to home to her.
It's the only thing to fill her mind for the next few days, and late at night, when Lexa's breathing evens out and Clarke thinks she's asleep, she kisses Lexa's shoulder and whispers, "I love you."
The words fill in the blanks in Lexa's mind and she realizes Clarke always has.