Raven helps Clarke carry the boxes into Anya's apartment, stacking them behind the couch. Anya noticeably and pointedly only helps Raven, leaving Clarke to pant and huff and sweat while she drags the boxes of Lexa's books through the entryway, inch by inch. "Fuck you," she says, without heat.
Anya tosses her an eyeroll, her hands nudging Raven into a sitting position on the couch. "You're not supposed to be on your feet this long."
"You know I don't stand while I drive, right? No one stands while they drive. You know that. I can't date someone who doesn't know that."
"This is the wooing period," Anya informs her, pressing glass of water into Raven's palm. "Enjoy the woo."
Clarke uses her foot to kick the last box another foot along the floor. She makes pointed eyes at Raven.
"Right," Raven says, sitting up straight. "Is Lexa still at work? I-me, personally-I would like to know how Lexa is doing."
Anya rolls her eyes. Possibly as polite as she's capable of being, she answers Raven's painfully transparent questions. "Lexa is still at work. She's easing in slow, and they're being appropriately supportive."
Clarke kicks Raven in the ankle.
"And her headaches?" Raven asks, prompt.
"Gone, almost. Once a while a twinge. Down to just advil, though."
"That's good," Raven agrees. She looks idly at the far wall. "Do I have any other questions?"
Clarke glares. "No."
Anya bends to kiss Raven's cheek, light. "You're a good friend. Go down to the corner and grab a pizza?"
Raven flickers her eyes to Clarke. "You staying? I could get a six pack, order a movie on demand?"
"No," Clarke says, quick. "No, I should get back. Working tomorrow, you know."
Anya and Raven trade a complicated look. Raven rubs her fingers together and Anya rolls her eyes before tossing Raven her wallet from the counter. Raven fans herself with the billfold. "You're so good to me."
"Golddigger," Anya snipes, but it's fond and soft and she stays looking after the door closing behind Raven, a little smile playing at her the corners of her lips.
Clarke remembers that. Inside jokes and banter and the warmth of being happy healthy in love. "It's sweet," she offers. "You and Raven. You're good together."
Anya sighs. "Are we really doing this?"
Clarke picks up her phone and tucks it into her pocket. "Let's not."
She's got her hand on the doorknob when Anya calls after her. "I never pegged you for a quitter." Clarke stops, but doesn't turn. "I've thought a lot of unflattering things about you, but never that."
Clarke sighs. "So we are doing this. I thought you'd be pleased."
Anya scoffs. "Don't be an asshole. Just because I didn't do cartwheels when Lexa brought you home doesn't mean I wanted… this."
Clarke turns and leans her back against the door, head tipped up. She exhales, slow. "I don't know what to do."
Anya shifts on her feet, awkward and unsure.
"I thought I would," Clarke admits. "I thought, you know. That I could figure it out. That we'd go on a couple of dates, and-. We fell in love before, right? I mean maybe I asked her out first but she kissed me first, she said we should move in, she remembered birthdays and anniversaries, she-" Clarke shakes her head. "It's not like I was alone in it. We were in love. We were in love. And now it's just me."
"So you blame her? For forgetting you?" Anya makes a vague gesture with both of her hands. "We're alone, and to be frank, I'm already thinking a lot less of you."
"She remembers law school," Clarke blurts out. "She remembers-fuck, she remembers Raven and Octavia, and apparently at her last appointment, she talked to my mother in the elevator and remembered she's allergic to pears, which half the time I fucking forget about my own goddamn mother. She-" Clarke wipes at her eyes, rough. Her voice cracks, messy and wet. "She remembers that she fed a stray cat last year. Last year! We fed that cat together. And I know I can't blame her and I know it's not her fault, I do."
Anya is close to her, suddenly. "It's alright," she gentles. "I'd be angry, too."
"I know it's not her fault," Clarke repeats. "And I know about how brain injuries are, I know that. I do. But it's like she took a scalpel to her memory and only cut the parts with me out."
Anya touches her shoulder. "And you're giving up."
"Did you know about the ring?"
Anya's face freezes. "Yes," she admits. "But I didn't... I thought maybe you didn't. It seemed cruel, to tell you." Her expression flickers. "It is cruel, for you to know."
"I need to think," Clarke admits. "I need to-to sleep, and I can't, because the sheets are still... I just need some time."
Anya reaches into her pocket and retrieves a pen. She flips Clarke's arm over and writes on her forearm. "This is a hotel I used to crash at when Lexa kicked me out so you could lie to me about fucking on the sofa. Clean, quiet, not far from the hospital. Decent rate, okay room service. Delivery options."
Clarke looks at the address in ballpoint ink, smudged faintly on her skin. "Yeah. Okay." A couple days of sleep and food that isn't corn chips and instant noodles. Some time to think.
/
"Hey," Octavia says, when Clarke answers the door. She's holding two bottles of wine, one in each hand, and she hands Clarke the one that's already been uncorked. "How was the vacation?"
"The hotel was nice," Clarke says, swigging from the bottle and moving to let Octavia inside. "And I'm back full time at work, so."
Octavia looks at the cartons of takeout, some a few days old, littering the kitchen countertops. "I can see that."
Clarke shoves a few old styrofoam boxes and their drunken noodle remnants into a hefty bag. "Uh, I just haven't gotten to cleaning up yet."
Octavia dusts a few grains of fried rice off the sofa and flops into it. "Yeah, I can see that. Lincoln said I should bring a casserole."
Clarke perks up, faintly. "Did you?"
"No. I'm not even a hundred percent sure what a casserole is. Plus… casseroles are funeral food. Lexa's not dead."
Clarke is quiet. She takes another long pull of wine. "Do you wanna watch the kid masterchef show with me?"
"Get drunk and shout at children? I already do that at my day job, I've got the eighth graders this year. How about Chopped?"
Clarke sits down on the sofa. Lets herself kind of half melt onto Octavia in an awkward semi-embrace. Octavia pats the side of her head absently and reaches for the remote with her free hand.
/
Clarke is still on the phone with her mother when she gets home. "I haven't given up," she says, for the tenth time since she picked up the call in the parking lot. "I'm giving her some room-I gotta go Mom, I gotta cook dinner." She yanks open the fridge and uses the tip of a used chopstick on the counter to poke at the takeout containers. Drops her phone on the counter and slaps at it until the call disconnects.
She's lying on the sofa thinking about ordering a pizza and playing candy crush on her phone when her door buzzes. She throws a shoe at it. "Not tonight, Raven!"
She watches the shadow in the hall under the door shift. The door buzzes again. She sighs. Levers herself up and hops on one foot to throw her sock in a random direction before yanking the door open. "Unless you have a meat lovers supreme, I'm-"
It's Lexa. All of Clarke's words dry up. She gapes, aware of the grime of the day in her hair and the smudged mascara around her eyes. Lexa looks pale, and tired. Her face is too thin and the beanie yanked over her head looks itchy and uncomfortable. "Hey."
"H-hi," Clarke stammers. "Is-are you okay?"
"I used my phone to get here." Lexa holds up her phone, then tucks it in a pocket, shifting on her feet. "I don't-I still don't remember."
"Okay." Clarke opens the door a little wider. "Do you want…?"
"If you don't mind."
"Of course not," Clarke says, and lets Lexa in.
/
When they were in college they had a metal electric kettle, plugged into the powerstrip under Lexa's desk. Clarke's was always too messy. They made shitty instant coffee and ramen noodles and when the test was over or the paper handed in, Lexa used to go over to the campus store and pay too much for tiny marshmallows and the packets of cheap hot chocolate powder and make Clarke a warm mug to cup her hands around and sip from while Lexa hummed and braided her hair and they paid no attention to the movie playing tinny over the laptop speakers.
Clarke keeps a box of the Swiss Mix behind the crackers in the cupboard. Half nostalgic fondness and half a little bit resistant of leaving behind being young and free of responsibility. She heats the water in mugs in the microwave because she's never had Lexa's patience, to stir milk on the stovetop. She watches the plate turn through the heavy tinted glass and plastic and listens to the hum, and when it beeps twice, she pulls them out and stirs the powder in.
She hears the door and the quiet sound of Lexa's feet on the tile. It's so achingly familiar, she half expects to feel Lexa's arms wind around her waist and the point of Lexa's chin in her shoulder; a memory echo of how Lexa used to like to kiss her soft and dry lipped in the hollow just behind her ear. She swallows and flicks a tiny look sideways-Lexa with her hair wet and tangled and barefoot in Clarke's pajama pants and Clarke's hoodie, swallowing her up. Tired eyes and the hunch in her shoulders that means her knee is acting up.
"I made hot chocolate," she says, to break the silence.
"I slept with someone," Lexa replies.
Clarke's hand jerks on the spoon and the cup sloshes, spilling over onto the counter and her hand. She hisses, dragging her tongue up her thumb. Presses a knuckle between her eyes. Rips a paper towel off the roll to clean up her mess. "Oh," she says, and it's too high pitched and choked off.
"I'm sorry," Lexa says, quiet, and Clarke flinches, fingers tight around the mug. She slides it across the counter and Lexa touches the curve of the handle, Clarke pulling away like she's been burned. "I don't say it to hurt you. I'm just… trying to explain why I'm here."
"It hurts me," Clarke tells her, because it's been years since she lied to Lexa and she doesn't want to start now.
Lexa nods, acknowledging. "I was… out drinking." Her throat works in a quiet swallow, her lips tugging downwards. Disappointed in herself. "I have been drinking a lot." She pauses again. "Uncharacteristically, I feel."
"How would you know?"
Lexa blinks at her.
"I mean, you could have been a lush. Two days from checking yourself in with Dr. Drew."
Lexa blinks some more. "Who's Dr. Drew?"
"Could be your therapist. Could be your best friend. Who knows? Not you."
Despite that-the raw hollow abyss of yearning in her chest and the spinning in her head (someone else's hands on Lexa's bare torso, her fine thin scars and her shivers, her tongue in someone else's mouth, legs spread and their name on her lips and was it a blonde like Clarke or all curls like Costia)-despite that. It is something, to see the corner of Lexa's mouth curl up. Familiar, her quiet appreciation for Clarke's humor and her own wry wit. "Thank you, Clarke."
"For what?"
Lexa puts her cup into the sink, still full. "For letting me in." She raises a hand very slightly in farewell, awkward, and pads off. Clarke hears the couch creak. She leans against the counter and tips her head back and closes her eyes and gulps her drink down in too big swallows.
For letting her in, Lexa had said. Like Clarke did her a favor. Like this apartment isn't a listing Lexa picked out and like the kitchen isn't organized just so because Lexa put her hands on her hips and glared until Clarke meekly added the cutlery drawer organizer to their cart at the dollar store. Like the chip in the top left cabinet isn't there because Lexa slammed Clarke against it with the force of her body and her joy and her love when Clarke nailed her dream job interview.
Like Lexa doesn't live here anymore.
/
Clarke wakes because there's noise in the kitchen. For just-just a quarter of a second, she thinks Lexa is gonna make me eat whole fucking wheat toast again. Then she wakes up completely and drags her hands over her face, smudging the sleep out of her eyes. Remembers it's been days and days and days since she's slept with Lexa's arm over her waist.
She gives herself a few minutes in the bathroom first. Enough time to comb her hair and brush her teeth and scrub at her face. To hold her makeup in one hand and look at herself in the mirror and turn one way and then the other before shoving everything back into a drawer and sweeping her hair up into a messy ponytail. There's bags under her eyes and she's a little sleep swollen, but she'd rather be that than for Lexa to realize she'd put on concealer in the bathroom just because Lexa was in the kitchen.
Lexa is standing at the stove. "I'm making breakfast," she says, darting a quick glance back at Clarke before returning her attention to the stove. "I hope you don't mind."
Of course not, make yourself at home, is what Clarke thinks she should say. "Who did you fuck?" is what she ends up asking.
Lexa's back goes stiff. She doesn't say anything. Whatever's in the pan sizzles; the stove fan blares dully in the background as white noise.
"I'm going to shower," Clarke says. "I'm not hungry."
She half expects Lexa to be gone when she gets out of the shower. She dresses for comfort and confidence and changes three times before straightening her shoulders and leaving the safety of the bedroom. Lexa is sitting on the couch reading the newspaper-it's such a familiar sight it punches the breath from Clarke's lungs.
"There's a plate for you in the-"
"Oven," Clarke finishes.
Lexa looks up from the paper. "Yes." She tries for a weak smile. "A common occurrence?"
"Not uncommon." Clarke retrieves the plate from the oven, still warm. Homefries and eggs and mushrooms, bacon mixed in and everything scrambled up into a heap of comfort food. Clarke stares at the plate for so long her eyes start to water. "You made this?" she calls back.
"I knew how to cook before I met you," Lexa informs her, waspish the way she is when Clarke interrupts her reading and her coffee.
Clarke sits at the table and eats, listening to the ruffle of Lexa's newspaper and the clink of her coffee mug, the rustle of her clothing when she uncrosses and recrosses her legs. Clarke sets her fork down. "I think you should stay."
Lexa keeps the paper up, hiding her face. "I don't have any clothes here. And I work tomorrow."
"I think you should stay here."
The paper snaps folded, neatly in Lexa's lap. She meets Clarke's eyes. "And why is that?"
Clarke grins. "Because I know something you don't know."
"Oh?"
Clarke drags a finger around the rim of her plate, licks it clean. "This is the Griffin one-pan slam. I taught you how to make it. You don't eat this. You eat yogurt and granola and fresh cut fruit and leftover cold Chinese when you think I'm not looking. You only make this for me."
Lexa holds her gaze for another three beats of Clarke's heart. "Alright," she says, and starts on the crossword.
/
They spend the day in halting, awkward cohabitation. Clarke pretends to be incredibly invested in an all day marathon of sports documentaries so Lexa can snoop about the apartment unwatched.
Raven appears at lunchtime with Chinese and a handful of DVDs. "Do you know how many places I had to go to find a still-existing Redbox?"
Lexa frowns at the selection. "Which of these do I like?" she asks.
Clarke elbows Raven, hard. "Read the synopsis," she suggests. "And pick. We won't say anything one way or the other."
Lexa retreats to the couch with her phone, seriously engaged in comparing reviews and blurbs.
"Going okay?" Raven whispers, while she and Clarke watch the popcorn go around in circles through the cloudy microwave door.
"She agreed to stay," Clarke whispers back, and accepts Raven's supportive fistbump. "Do you think you could-? Or is that weird and manipulative?"
"You're weird and manipulative," Raven says, fishing her phone of her pocket and texting rapidly. "Anya will call with a fake emergency in fifteen minutes."
"You're a good friend."
"I'm a good everything," Raven informs her.
Lexa only rolls her eyes a little when Raven suddenly and effusively apologetically has to leave right now, immediately. "Maybe sell it a little less," Clarke mutters, when they hug goodbye.
"Good luck with the you know what," Raven whispers, far far too loudly. Lexa rolls her eyes again.
Clarke vaguely remembers the movie Lexa picked. It's sad and it's half in subtitles and Lexa tricked her into going to see it in theaters by suggesting the crowd would be very sparse and therefore provide a greater opportunity for hanky panky; she followed this up by being so raptly engrossed in the film that Clarke took a nap until the credits rolled and Lexa woke her up with an elbow and a disapproving sigh.
It's not any more engaging the second time, but Clarke does manage to stay awake. The credits roll and Lexa smiles. "I like it," she declares.
"The more things change," Clarke says. They stay where they've settled into opposite sides of the couch, snuggled into the cushions, the empty popcorn bowl set aside. The credits finish and the splash screen loops on mute. Clarke's head is on the arm of the sofa, her body slumped. "I'll get up," she mumbles, remembering she's occupying half of what's serving as Lexa's bed. "We should… eat dinner or something."
"It's okay," Lexa says, quiet and sleepy. Clarke sees her yawn out of the corner of her eye. "I don't mind."
"Okay," Clarke sighs. She falls asleep listening to Lexa's measured even breathing.
Clarke wakes with a start. It's dark out and the television has gone blue with inactivity. She'd stretched out at some point, her feet nudging Lexa's thighs; Lexa has slumped sideways, her head on Clarke's hip, her hair tickling the back of Clarke's hand. Her chest rises and falls, her eyes flutter gently under their closed lids. "Lex," Clarke rasps, stirring and trying to reach the coffee table where her phone is resting screen down. "Lexa."
"Mm," Lexa mumbles. She smashes her face into the back of Clarke's thigh. "Sshh."
"Lexa," Clarke says, without any real heat. "Gonna fuck up the sleeping schedule."
"Shut up," Lexa suggests. The fingers of one of her hands curls around Clarke's socked ankle, tickling the stubby hairs at just the start of her calf. It's softly intimate and her breath seeps warmth into the denim of Clarke's jeans and she lets herself be drawn slowly gently back into sleep.
/
"We shouldn't have slept so long," Lexa informs Clarke, while she's still trying to get her eyes to focus and the drool out of the corners of her mouth. Her arms are crossed, her tone accusing.
Clarke points at her. "I tried! You threatened my life!"
Lexa scoffs.
Clarke rubs at her eyes. "What time is it?"
"Three-thirty," Lexa mutters. "I'd let you sleep, but I can't remember if you can sleep through that long or if you should wake up for an hour or two before napping."
Clarke has, on occasion, thought that if she didn't have to pee, she could easily sleep for forty-eight hours at a time, perhaps even consecutively. On occasion she's suspected the same of Lexa. "Stay up for a bit," she chooses, and swallows down a yawn. "Cocoa?"
"Please."
Lexa follows her into the kitchen, leaning a hip on the counter and looking heavy eyed and sleep soft while Clarke pours milk into a saucepan. She hands Clarke the cocoa powder when it's time and fishes the same two mugs out of the drying rack. The kitchen table is just there, but when Lexa goes back to the couch Clarke follows.
Clarke sips her drink and… and maybe it's the way everything is dark-dim and whisper-quiet. How the outside sounds are muted and far away and they've slipped into the sideways place of very late at night and very early in the morning. But she wets her tongue with cocoa the way Lexa likes it, hot and almost bitter, and she asks again, quiet and almost pleading, "Tell me about her?"
Lexa is quiet for so long Clarke thinks they're carrying on like she never asked, but then Lexa sets her mug aside. "Do you really want to know?"
No, Clarke thinks, her stomach rolling, God no, never. "Yes," her mouth says. "Please."
/
Lexa says she goes walking at night now. Nothing dangerous or illicit, just the crispness of the air when the sun goes down and the roving glow of the streetlamps. The downtown area has lights strung among the trees and the rumble of young people leading young lives; the bursts of raucous joy when the bar doors open and they spill out onto the street to stagger home.
Lexa says that she went into one bar, looking for that spark in her chest. She says that the last clear memory she has before the holes start is being one of those students, stories that start with 'one time at a party' and drinking vodka straight from the plastic bottle, cheap pisswater beer and the clatter of empties off balconies when you see the coplights coming.
Lexa says she was drinking-Lexa corrects herself and says she was drunk. A shot of tequila and two cocktails and then another hit of tequila when a girl went bellyup to the bar right next to her, said her name was Jamie, and offered a wrist of salt and a lime wedge in the crook of her thumb.
Lexa says Jamie had brown hair and brown eyes and an easy smile. She says Jamie is a schoolteacher in town for her college roommate's wedding. That she flipped her hotel keycard in her fingers nervously until Lexa traded it for a jello shot and ordered an uber ride for two. They stood awkwardly in the elevator and Jamie turned down the bedsheets while Lexa took off her shoes and her jacket and laid them on the desk chair. They kissed three times: once before, Lexa's hands easing Jamie's jacket to let drop to the floor, once during, Lexa on top with her bra still on, once after, a light easy peck with Jamie still naked on the sheets, Lexa's boots untied and her hair mussed, checking her pockets for her keys and her phone before she makes her way back to the street.
Lexa says Clarke, very gently and softly, her hand hovering over Clarke's shoulder. Clarke, I-. She's sorry, maybe, or confused. Maybe she didn't expect to see Clarke crumble in on herself, her face in her hands and shaking, helpless, wracked with the force of her sobs; pain so acute it's unfathomable there's no physical root to it.
/
Clarke feels wrung out, slumped into the couch in a position that makes her neck crack when she shifts. She sleeps for another hour, stirring when she hears Lexa quietly getting showered and dressed and out the door to work. She stares at the ceiling for an undetermined amount of time and sleeps again.
She wakes up again and thinks about going for the bottle of wine in the back of the fridge-she plays candy crush on her phone for twenty minutes and goes back to sleep instead.
"Clarke," Lexa murmurs, a dark blur in Clarke's fuzzy vision.
"You're here," she says, her voice rasping. She blinks until Lexa comes into focus. "Sorry for… me. Everything."
"It's alright. I didn't know if I should bring dinner? I mean, I didn't know if you'd want to eat."
"I want," Clarke murmurs. She sits up. "I want to get high."
Lexa blinks. "Okay. I didn't bring any of that either."
It takes Clarke half an hour to find her old stash and her old pipe. Lexa wrinkles her nose at the old weed smell and scours the bathroom cabinets, emerging triumphant with rubbing alcohol and going at the pipe until it gleams again. They dust off the old futon they'd hand carried two blocks from the place they bought it to the apartment and up the four flights of stairs and through the broken sliding door onto their tiny balcony and Clarke packs a bowl. "You like to pretend it's not so," she tells Lexa, "but you were always more into it than I was."
"Objection," Lexa says, taking a long draw from her third generous glass of wine. "Slander all over the place."
Clarke flicks the lighter and takes a drag and feels it hit the back of her throat, thick and hot and acrid; she exhales in a coned plume, wisping up heavy and fading into the sky, just barely starting to brighten at the horizon. "Fuck," she mutters, swallowing a cough and sneaking Lexa's wine away to chase the taste off her tongue.
Lexa takes a bigger hit than Clarke, and with an ease that has Clarke rolling her eyes. Her exhale is lighter, her mouth slipping open lax and easy and letting the smoke tip out. "Do you feel better?" she asks. She holds the pipe steady for Clarke's lips to slip around the mouthpiece, just over where her own where.
Clarke exhales again. Her blood sings, the world goes soft and quiet. Ash flutters, dusting white and grey on the cushion between them. "I don't know," she admits. "I feel better than I did when you were telling me about it. But I don't feel better than I did two months ago, when I'd wake up in bed with you."
Lexa settles back onto the couch, her legs tucking up under her. Her toe brushes against Clarke's hip. They pass the pipe back and forth, watch the sun start to rise. "I don't work today," Lexa says, eventually.
"I do. Just paperwork today, though."
There's a long long pause. Clarke blows the last of the ashes out of the bowl, leaving it empty.
"I'm hungry," Lexa says, eyes thoughtful and distant. "I want… pizza."
Clarke digs her phone out of her pocket. "What kind?"
Lexa's brow furrows. "Which do I like?"
"Do you not know because you're high, or because you're brain-damaged?"
Lexa considers the question deeply. "Both," she decides.
An idea niggles in the back of Clarke's mind. "How about," she says, slowly. "I call in, and we figure it out."
Lexa's eyes flicker at her. "They won't deliver until at least eleven."
"Grocery store," Clarke says. "A toppings run. I know how to make dough and we've got the stuff here."
Lexa considers the idea deeply. "I'm very high," she decides. "You will be in charge of navigation and finances."
"Acceptable," Clarke says, and stands with minimal swaying. "We'll walk down to the store on the corner; it's twenty four hours."
/
Lexa considers each item very seriously. She explains, twice, how Clarke can check the unit price on the shelf stickers. Then she eats an entire packet of licorice in the sauce aisle and panics because she didn't pay for it yet. Clarke stuffs the wrapper into her pocket and grabs Lexa by the hand. "C'mon, Louise," she says, and drags Lexa over to bicker about shredded cheese mixes.
They emerge triumphant, with two paper bags of vegetables, varied meats, cheese, tomato sauce, and yeast packets. Clarke scrolls her phone with one free finger while they climb the stairs. "It says to just mix the shit and add warmish water."
"Haven't you done this before?"
Clarke digs in her pocket for her keys. "No. I mean, Raven used to do it in college, but I always just reaped the benefits."
Lexa goes oddly quiet, her forehead furrowed. "Something new," she says, when they're unpacking the bags onto the kitchen counter. She looks slantwise at Clarke, then smiles. "Something new."
"Pepperoni," Clarke says, poking at the pizza in the saucepan. "Onions, mushrooms."
"I'm hungry," Lexa says, not for the first time. She reaches for a chunk of vegetable on the chopping board and Clarke slaps at her hand with the spatula. Lexa glares. "I'm hungry."
"Go roll a joint."
Lexa leans her hip against the counter. She uses the hem of her t-shirt to mop up a few drops of spilled water, and Clarke watches from the corner of her eye: Lexa's hipbones, the flashes of her belly and the jut of her ribs, still thin from the weight she dropped just after the accident. Clarke pokes at the melted cheese and pretends to be paying attention to the crust cooking through while she watches: Lexa's fingers and the dull glint of the kitchen light off her nails, the flex of her wrists and the roll of her knuckles and how her eyes narrow in that specific way that means she's concentrating her hardest.
The lighter flickers with flame and Lexa takes the first drag, tipping her head back to blow a cone of smoke at the ceiling. "This won't make me less hungry."
Clarke rolls her eyes. "Get a plate, then."
Lexa takes the first bite and wrinkles her nose. "I don't think I like onions."
Once, on a dare, Lexa had bitten into a raw onion like an apple and then kissed Clarke just to make her giggle through her furious glower.
"No onions," Clarke agrees. She pokes a the pile of vegetables. "How do you feel about bell peppers?"
Lexa considers the question carefully, her pupils dilated and her blinks slow. "Positively."
Clarke dumps yeast into the bowl of flour. "Bell peppers it is."
"I can't eat anymore," Lexa groans. She reaches for another slice and takes a bite. "I like bacon," she decides, muffled through the mouthful. "I like bacon a lot."
Clarke watches her with genuine admiration. "The crust isn't even cooked all way through on that one."
Lexa swallows. "Yeah, it's not good. Hand me the pineapple and ham?"
"Gross," Clarke comments, but complies.
Lexa takes a single bite. "I'm going to throw up."
"Too much, or too high?"
Lexa lists over on the couch. "Both. Fuck."
Clarke runs for the garbage can in the kitchen. She makes it back just in time, wisps of Lexa's hair escaping her hasty grab and falling around her face as Lexa retches. "Gross," Clarke murmurs, and then, "okay?"
"Fuck," Lexa slurs. She wipes at her mouth. "I'm okay."
Clarke grabs the glass of water from the table. "Here." She waits until Lexa's drained it, then sets it aside. "Bed time?"
"Yeah." Lexa flops over onto her back, yawning so wide her jaw cracks. "Thanks for doing this."
Clarke's hand is still on Lexa's hip, Lexa's elbow is nudged against her ribs. She sits there until Lexa's breathing has evened out, and then a long while longer. She watches, quietly and ardently: the rise and fall of Lexa's chest, the soft draw of breath through her lips and the flutter of her exhale, the way her hair moves slightly when the breeze ruffles through the cracked open window. She falls asleep sitting up on the floor with her back against the sofa, her head near Lexa's knee.
/
Clarke gets home and the blanket is folded neatly at the end of the couch instead of rumpled from the warm weight of Lexa's body. Lexa's shoes and bag are gone and there's a bowl soaking in the sink, faint oatmeal residue around the rim.
Clarke sits on the sofa. She checks her phone and thinks about reaching for the remote, her head tipped back and staring blankly at the ceiling. The silence is loud and grating and she thinks there's no more vodka in the freezer. "Fuck," she mutters.
She's halfway to her feet, thinking she'll just go to bed and try again at functioning normally tomorrow, when the lock turns. Lexa peeks her head through. "Hey."
Clarke boggles. "H-hey! You're back."
Lexa shuffles in sideways, her arms full. "I brought food."
Clarke clears her throat and adds some cheer to her voice to cover it's emotional wobble. "Great!"
Clarke helps her unload the takeout onto the counter, take down a few plates and forks. Lexa doles out spoons of curry and white rice. "You didn't think I was coming back."
Clarke looks down at her plate. "I woke up and-no. I didn't think you were coming back."
Lexa takes a bite, chews slowly, swallows. Considers her fork for a moment before she finally speaks, quiet and whispered: "I didn't either."
/
On the seventh day, Lexa comes home late. Clarke is watching television with her phone in a death grip, clicking the screen back alive everytime it goes to sleep, thinking about Lexa in a gutter, in a totaled car, in a hospital flatlining alone. She hears the key in the lock and the relief hits her like a freight train, leaving her dizzy and breathless. She makes herself tuck her phone under her thigh and return her gaze to the television. "Hey," she manages, carefully nonchalant.
"Hello," Lexa says, very seriously. Then she wobbles and trips into the apartment, steadying herself on the doorknob and swaying with the motion of the door. "Shit."
"You're drunk."
"Yes." Lexa stumbles in, evening out her steps and using the wall to stabilize herself. "I went to many bars. At least two."
"Party girl Woods," Clarke teases, crossing the room to take her by the arm and guide her over to the couch. She reevaluates Lexa's list and goes for the bedroom instead, the bed higher up and the bathroom closer. "What are you drinking, these days?"
"Beer." Lexa leans back, flopping back onto the bed and sighing. "Clarke."
Clarke is easing Lexa's bag off her shoulder, setting it aside and smoothing Lexa's messy hair. "Yes, Lexa."
"Beer is so disgusting, Clarke. Why does anyone drink it. Why, Clarke?"
"You still did," Clarke points out, kneeling and starting to work on the laces of Lexa's boots. "Why did you drink it?"
Lexa exhales. "It's rude to refuse gifts." Her voice is vague and almost smiling, but it makes Clarke's back go stiff and her heart pound in the roof of her mouth.
"Someone bought you drinks."
"Mm."
Clarke frees one foot and drops the boot to the side. She starts working on the second. "So you're making friends." It comes out hard and flat, and she coughs, trying to soften it. "Did you have fun?"
"No." Lexa sighs, tipsy and bluntly honest. "I don't know, Clarke."
Clarke's hand is on her knee, steadying. Lexa's laces flap when Clarke undoes them. "You don't know?"
Lexa's fingers land on her cheek, clumsy, startling Clarke into stillness. When she looks up Lexa has curled her back, propped up on her elbows and leaning in close, her eyes slightly unfocused. "Clarke," she says, careful and gentle on her tongue, just the way she used to when they lay together in bed and the whole world was just each other.
Clarke's breath catches, her eyes flutter. "What don't you know?"
Lexa's hand falls away. Her eyes go distant. Clarke stays there until her knees are screaming and her calves are cramping, until Lexa's breathing has evened out and her face has gone soft and lax with sleep, on her side with her hand tucked under her cheek and her ankle still in the loose circle of Clarke's fingers.
/
Lexa opens her eyes, muzzy from sleep, and blinks at Clarke. "That's creepy," she rasps.
"Yeah, I wasn't planning on being caught." Clarke straightens from where she was leaning against the wall watching Lexa sleep. "I spent the night on the couch."
Lexa stands, stretching until her shoulder cracks with a sigh of relief. "You didn't have to do that."
Clarke shrugs. "It's your bed, too. I just didn't want you to think I- Anyway. I spent the night on the couch."
"You're off today?"
"Night shift." Clarke tilts her head towards the bathroom. "You should get ready."
Lexa checks the clock on the bedside table. She groans and rubs at her temple. "Fuck. Yeah."
"There's advil on the counter and a bagel in the toaster. Throw another one in there before you go?"
Lexa nods, headed for the shower. "See you at dinner, before you go?"
Clarke hums, acknowledging, and sits on the edge of the mattress, looking around. Lexa's bag against the wall, her shoes kicked off and lying sideways on the floor. Her toothbrush is in the cup on the bathroom counter, her keys on the hook by the front door. When Clarke lies down her head fits into the indent Lexa left in the pillow, the lingering scent of her bodywash on the sheets.
She's dozing when she hears the hairdryer, and drifting into a deep sleep when Lexa emerges. She feels, distantly, the bed dip when Lexa sits to put her shoes on, the light touch of Lexa's fingers on her elbow, her murmured goodbye.
She drags herself out of bed after only a few hours for water and a mid morning breakfast before she goes to sleep for a long stretch, and there's a bagel on a plate on the counter waiting for her. It's toasted, sliced in half, and spread with strawberry jam. Clarke snags it, sinking her teeth into the faint crunch as she heads for the fridge, and the taste makes her pause, the door open in her hand. She takes the bagel out of her mouth and looks at it in the dim fridge light. The layer of jam, and then, underneath: margarine.
Just the way Clarke likes it and just the way Lexa shouldn't remember how to fix it.
/
Lexa brings home pizza, faintly smug at her sly joke, and Clarke rolls her eyes as she gets plates down from the cabinet. Lexa is quiet while she eats, thoughtful and withdrawn, barely engaging when Clarke ribs her for eating pizza with a knife and fork.
Clarke does dishes while Lexa taps away at her laptop, wraps the extra slices in aluminum foil for them to take with them to work. She cracks a bottle of wine and pours them both a glass and browses a journal with the television on low and Lexa next to her on the couch. It's domestic, perfectly so, and when Clarke flicks the television off and says she's going to bed she kisses Lexa's cheek before she realizes what she's doing. She freezes, but Lexa just smiles at her, distracted by the case she's prepping for, and Clarke retreats to the back bathroom to run the water and splash it over her face, her heart racing.
She makes herself change, and wash her face with a cloth, scrubbing until her skin feels red and sensitive to the cold tap water. She drops into bed and takes a long time to fall asleep, tossing and turning.
She's woken just a few minutes later, a hand on her shoulder. "Clarke," Lexa whispers.
Clarke goes up on her elbows, muzzy. "Yeah? What's wrong?"
"Nothing, I-" Lexa is in her pajamas, fleece bottoms and a ribbed tank top, her hair pulled back into a ponytail. "I," she says again, and almost looks lost.
Clarke scoots back. She raises the edge of the sheet, the blanket tossed down to the foot of the bed, and waits. Lexa slides beneath it, turning so her back fits against Clarke's front, her toes cold when they brush Clarke's ankle. Clarke hesitates, and then, inch by inch as Lexa settles into stillness, moves closer and closer.
And then it's almost like it was. Lexa spooned against Clarke's front, her hair tickling Clarke's noise. Except instead of a grope or a kiss to the back of Lexa's neck Clarke is holding her breath and laying her arm across Lexa's waist like she's disarming a bomb. Lexa sighs, making Clarke freeze, but then she noses into the pillow and-infinitesimally, but-relaxes back into Clarke's embrace. It makes Clarke brave.
"Lexa," she whispers.
"Mm?"
It's quiet, in their room. The streetlight leaking through the blinds in the window, the muted sounds of lonely cars on the road. "Let me take you out," Clarke asks, and she wonders if Lexa can feel her heartbeat, rabbit quick against her back. "Let me try again."
Lexa pulls away and it almost rips a sob from Clarke's chest, the loss of her. But Lexa isn't leaving the bed; she's turning over. Clarke can feel Lexa's breath on her face, spearmint and the last vestiges of the wine. Their legs are tangled, their hips touching, just enough light to make out that Lexa's eyes are open. "Why?"
"I've tried," Clarke says. "I have. You could have- You're alive, and you're okay, and maybe you could find happiness with someone else and maybe I could, too, but that's all maybes, Lexa. I want you to be happy and I know, I know you're happy with me."
Mine, Clarke wants to tell her. You're mine, and no one is going to take you away from me, not even you. She pushes that thought down with a grimace. "If I was a better person I'd do the let you go thing. But you're still you, and you're still here. I want you to be happy, and I want you to be with me."
Lexa kisses her. She misses the first time, landing on Clarke's chin, but then her lips are on Clarke's and it's just how Clarke remembers it. She spent a long time, those days at the motel, trying to remember the last time they'd kissed before the accident. She thought maybe it was just before Clarke left for work, an absent-minded kiss pressed to Lexa's hair while she leveled herself out of bed for a shower. But maybe it had been the night before, Lexa kissing her when Clarke sidled up to the stove to try and steal a bite of stirfry.
Clarke's teary by the time the kiss breaks, and glad of the darkness that hides it. They're breathing quicker, the both of them, for all it was a short, slow kiss, softer than it was deeper. "I don't like Thai," Lexa reminds her. She used to bring it home every week like clockwork.
"I remember," Clarke says.
/
Clarke wears the same blue dress. Doesn't bring flowers, but she does pick Lexa up from her own apartment, knocking on the door like she doesn't have the keys in her pocket. It makes Lexa smile.
"I made reservations," Clarke tells her, in the car. "At three restaurants." Ethiopian, French, the gourmet burger place downtown that always has a line out the door.
"Ambitious," Lexa says, taking off her sunglasses and storing them in the glove compartment.
"I cancelled them all."
"Fast food isn't particularly romantic."
Clarke makes a turn, the wheel sliding smooth in her palms. She remembers bickering with Lexa over the colour of the car, how it felt to see both of their names on it. "You won't suffer a Big Mac tonight."
"Chinese," Lexa guesses.
"Nope."
"Indian."
"Wrong again."
Lexa frowns. "Thai," she says, like it's a dirty word. Clarke rolls her eyes.
"Something new," she says. "Someplace we've never been."
Lexa tilts her head into the last of the setting sunrays. "I like that."
Clarke smiles. "Me, too."
She parks and Lexa looks at the restaurant sign. "Clarke," she says, serious, "are we married?"
Clarke blinks. "What? No. Why?"
"Because I want to divorce you."
Clarke grins. She swings out of the car and walks around the hood to open the passenger side door. "We're all family at the Olive Garden, Lexa."
Lexa sighs. "This is your romantic plan?"
"I have my ways."
"Bottomless salad," Clarke says, dishing it out for both of them. "Endless breadsticks. All the wine my credit limit can handle. Admit it, I'm batting a thousand right now."
Lexa takes a long sip of wine. "Ah," she says, "twelve dollar red."
"Eat a breadstick, you're hangry." Clarke nudges the basket at her. "There's a footpath near here," she says, "google says five minutes away on foot, along the river. I thought maybe, after dinner?"
Lexa takes a breadstick, the olive oil leaving her fingers shining. "I'd like that." She closes the menu with a snap. "I think I'll have the overpriced eggplant parmesan."
Clarke scoffs. "You fool, everyone knows you've gotta go with the alfredo."
They get both, split it between them, forks between plates sneaking bites.
Lexa doesn't let Clarke hide breadsticks in her purse. "Crumbs," she says, firmly. "Garlic butter. Next time we can bring ziplock."
Clarke's face must go besotted, her signature on the check skittering sideways. Next time.
The river is lit among the railing with christmas lights, white and twinkling, the bridge lit up with LED in the near distance. People pass them, once in awhile: joggers, families with dogs or children, other couples.
"I'm sorry," Lexa says, suddenly.
Clarke blinks. "For what?"
Lexa shrugs. "Most people keep saying how hard this is for me. But I just woke up like this. I don't feel like I lost things. It must be harder on you." Clarke stops walking, Lexa going a step further before turning and facing her. "Clarke?"
"I love you," Clarke says, bluntly. "I can't remember when-I can't remember the last time I told you, but I remember the last time you told me. We were on the couch. No, you were, and I came in and I smelled like actual human feces, even though I'd changed into fresh scrubs." She holds up a hand to wave away Lexa's clarifying questions. "Emergency room, don't ask. The important thing is I stank of shit. And you said: 'Clarke, you literally smell like shit.'"
Lexa narrows her eyes. "Are you paraphrasing?"
"I shit you not," Clarke says, and it makes Lexa roll her eyes. "So obviously, I crawled into your lap, and you threatened to leave me. So some things have stayed the same."
"So your romantic story is that you rubbed shit on me and that made me declare my love for you."
"Don't interrupt me. My romantic story is that I crawled in your lap smelling like shit, and I kissed you. And you-" Looked at Clarke with her soft eyes and her barely there smile. In the sweats Clarke bought her as a joke gift at Christmas, in one of Clarke's shirts, in the fuzzy socks because her toes are always cold. Her hand on Clarke's elbow, fingers stroking, her knee digging into Clarke's ribs. "You kissed the tip of my nose. And you said you loved me, but if I didn't throw out those scrubs you'd invite Anya over for dinner every Sunday." Clarke smiles. "That was the last time you said you loved me."
"I-" Lexa exhales. "Clarke, I…"
"I know." Clarke takes her hand, their palms pressed tight. "I know you don't love me yet. But I still love you, if that's okay."
Lexa's eyes are guarded, her shoulders tight. "And if it isn't?"
Clarke takes a deep breath. "Then I-I don't know. But we'll figure it out. I know I… I don't want to push you. But I will fight for you."
"I hurt you." Lexa hesitates, and Clarke flinches even before she says it: "The other girl, I-"
"We weren't together," Clarke says, quickly. "Not to you, I mean. And, I mean, I get it right? So it's in the past, it-" She steps closer. Waits to see if Lexa will back away. "Kiss me," she asks, achingly hopeful, her fingers sweaty.
Lexa leans in. Her fingers are gentle on Clarke's chin when she tilts it up and cradles her jaw, soft but not as soft as her kiss. Long and slow and their noses brush when she changes to the other side. Clarke's parted lips and how Lexa's tongue slips between them. She breaks the kiss, their foreheads pressed together. "Clarke."
"Did it feel like that, with her? You didn't go home to her. You came home to me. And you stayed. There's something here, even if it isn't love for you, not yet-it will be, someday."
Lexa waits for only twenty seconds. It feels, to Clarke, like a hundred years of yearning. She tucks Clarke's hair behind her ear. Their second kiss of the night is hungry, and deep, and breaks only when a passerby whoops, good-natured. She kisses the tip of Clarke's nose while they giggle. "Take me home, Clarke."
/
"That's a nice dress," Lexa says, in between hard kisses, pinning Clarke to their front door. She drags her teeth down the side of Clarke's throat. "It'd look better on our bedroom floor."
Clarke snorts. "Oh, my god."
"You have to pretend all of these are new lines," Lexa says, blatantly looking down the top of Clarke's dress.
Clarke fumbles in her clutch for her housekeys, Lexa kissing the line of her bare shoulder, her hands on Clarke's waist and their hips pressed together. "Are you sure," Clarke manages to ask. "We could, uh-"
Lexa takes the keys from her fingers. She unlocks the door and walks them through it, keeping them touching the whole way through. "Clarke," she says, very calm except that her pupils are blown and Clarke can feel her heart racing, "Take me to bed."
/
Lexa is wearing Clarke's shirt again, and nothing else. She ventures into the kitchen and comes back with a package of the twinkies Clarke didn't think she knew were in the cabinet while Clarke pees and tugs on a sleep shirt. They spill crumbs on the covers and snuggle up, the dirty sheet tossed aside. "You were different," Clarke says, while Lexa nuzzles at her neck. "I know you're wondering, and you were."
Lexa hesitates. "You didn't seem to be… adverse to the changes."
"Of course not," Clarke assures her. Lexa's arm is across her waist and she finds Lexa's fingers with her own, lacing them together. "But I think it's… it's something, isn't it? How lucky I am."
She feels Lexa blink, the flutter of her eyelashes on the back of Clarke's neck. "Lucky?"
Clarke wiggles around, turning until they're face to face, her leg between Lexa's, her hand on Lexa's cheek. "To get to fall in love with you twice. Somewhere else we might not have even gotten one happy ending, and here I am, rich with two."
Lexa smiles. "Let's just do the two, okay?" It's not I love you, and it's not will you marry me. Not this night or this week or maybe this year. But someday, someday. They have all the time in the world to get it right.
"You're the one with the brain damage," Clarke reminds her, and kisses Lexa's smile, right in the center while it blooms.
