a/n someone asked if I would go ahead and finish this sequence and I live to serve ((:
That night Lexa stayed at the loft while Clarke retrieved the girls. Their guardian has no issues getting a night off from the kids. Clarke wouldn't tell Lexa any of what she had planned. The only requirement was pajamas. She looked at herself in the mirror and threw off the third top that she had tried on. She didn't have actual pajamas, she usually just worse some combination of a tshirt and shorts. She didn't even know why she was trying so hard to look like she was normal. In the back of her mind, she knew it had to do with wanting to make a good impression on Anya's friends. She didn't want to come off as a hard ass or unfun. She reached in the back of her drawer and found a pair of pants with the NYU logo on them which she matched with her varsity soccer shirt. She heard a knock at the door and straightened her pony tail. She gave herself a thumbs up in the mirror and ran off for the door. Sliding into the living room on her socks, she grabbed her clipboard off the counter. She opened the door and four smiling young faces met her and one already annoyed adult.
"Hi come on in." The girls piled in leaving their bags on the floor. Lexa couldn't get their attention because they were so distracted by the loft. Izzy already was touching the fish tank, following the largest one around.
"You live here?" Reese asked in disbelief. "This looks like a spaceship."
"Thank you…I think. If you guys could just come over here for a second, then we can get this party started." She tried to be enthusiastic but she sounded like a mom at a PTA meeting.
"Can I just get your names?"
"Roma."
"Reese." Lexa wrote both of those down. She lifted her head up, not hearing the third girl. Izzy was still distracted by the fish.
"And you?"
"That's Izzy." Lexa nodded, finishing writing them down.
"Perfect, here we go then." She tore off sticky name tags and placed them on each girl. They looked down at the white piece of paper on their chest. Clarke put a hand over her eyes and shook her head.
"Come see my room." Anya grabbed all of the girls and ran down the hall.
"Did you just put name tags on a bunch of ten year olds?" She snatched the clipboard out of Lexa's hand.
"I don't want to get them mixed up and the little one is definitely younger than ten." Clarke slapped her in the back with the board.
"There's three of them Lexa. What is your disease?" She walked into the kitchen and set the pizza she had been caring down.
"Did the package I order get sent up?"
"You mean the questionable box sitting in my living room?"
"Yes." She said peaking around the wall. She ran down the stairs and peeled off the tape. Some of the foam peanuts spilled out as she pulled out a large pink machine.
"No." Lexa put up a hand. "Hell no. Put that up before they…" She was too late.
"Oh my gosh! Is that a karaoke machine?" The girls started to scream.
"…see" Lexa finished to herself. She snuck into the kitchen and pulled out her bottle of jack from under the counter, quickly pouring herself a finger and throwing it back. She was about to put it back when music began to whirl from the machine in the other room. She opened the lid again and took another swig.
"Lexa come on!" Anya yelled.
"Coming." Grabbing the pizza and plates, she made her way back to the living room.
"We can't figure out how to get it connected to the tv." Clarke held up a set of cords. Lexa grabbed them out of her hands and hooked the pieces into the wall that connected straight to the tv. A bright pink screen popped up with the song options. The girls squealed again.
"I want to sing Taylor, first." Anya was already flipping through the options on the screen. Lexa walked back to the couch and took a piece of pizza out of the box. The intro to blank space began to play throughout the loft. She put a finger to her ear, not ready for the girl singing (screaming) into the microphone.
"Who made this damn thing?" Lexa pulled over the box, trying to find the maker. Clarke reached over with the manual and leaned a little too close into her space.
"You did." She whispered, placing the instruction manual with Lexa's company logo in her lap.
"I'm firing whoever approved this."
"This is one of those projects you just told me to 'handle'." She put in air quotes. "It's a prototype anyways. You can destroy it as soon as we've had our fun." Clarke winked at her, pushing the boundaries farther than she ever had. Lexa didn't even know how to respond. She sunk farther into the couch watching the girls have the time of their lives.
After a few too many Taylor Swift, One Direction, and Selena Gomez songs, the girls collapsed on the couch.
"You guys have to go." Reese said, shoving a piece of pizza in her mouth.
"They're too old to know any of these." Roma commented back.
"Thanks guys."
"I'll put in the duet playlist. There has to be something." Anya jumped up and flipped through the CDs, putting in the desired one. Instead of going to a menu, a song started playing. Clarke listened to the first few bars and started to clap her hands.
"Yes. Come on everyone knows this song." Lexa folded her arms defiantly. "No." The girls squeezed behind her and pushed her off the couch. "Hey that's not fair."
"One song." Clarke pouted her lip.
"Fine, but restart the song at least." She picked the mics up off the floor and threw one to Clarke.
"I get to be Danny." She shook her shoulders out and loosened her neck like she used to do before games.
"This isn't American Idol." Clarke teased, restarting the song. The guitar intro began.
"Summer loving had me a blast…" Lexa held the mic close to her mouth, shimmying her shoulders as she sang. "Summer loving happened so fast…I met a girl crazy for me"
"Met a girl cute as can be, Summer days drifting away, To, uh oh, those summer nights" They danced around as the background singers sang their parts. The girls on the couch were laughing as both women dorkily danced.
"She swam by me, she got a cramp."
"She ran by me, got my suit damp." Lexa jumped on the couch next to Anya. "I saved her life, she nearly drowned." Clarke grabbed her back to where they could see the lyrics. "She showed off, splashing around."
"Summer sun, something's begun. But, oh, oh these summer nights."
"Took her bowling in the Arcade." Lexa mimed bowling.
"We went strolling drank lemonade."
"We made out under the dock." The girl's giggled, and pretended to close their eyes.
"We stayed up till ten o'clock. Summery fling, don't mean a thing, But oh, those summer nights." They hoped around again as the backup singers did their part. Clarke grabbed Lexa's hand and spun her around. "She got friendly holding my hand."
"Well she got friendly, down in the sand." Lexa kneeled before her moving her hand like the wave.
"She was sweet just turned eighteen."
Lexa pretended to whisper to the girls, "Oh she was good you know what I mean."
"Summer heat, girl and girl meet, But oh, oh the summer nights." The music slowed and Lexa stood up. Clarke took Lexa's arm and wrapped it around her waist, her back now laying into her torso. Lexa shuttered as they swayed back and forth looking off into the distance. She knew it was a part of the show but it felt too comfortable to be pretend. Clarke raised the mic to her mouth.
"It turned colder, that's where it ends."
Lexa forgot to sing. Clarke took her arm again and spun herself so they were facing.
"Then we made our true love vow."
"Wonder what she's doing now." Lexa turned her head dramatically.
"Summer dreams ripped at the seams…but oh those summer nights!" Lexa leaned back doing her best John Travolta howl. As the last note hit, she dropped the mic and raised her arms in the air in victory. Amid the clapping from the audience, her eyes met Clarke's and something she had never seen before sparkled in her pupils. She stood there without moving, looking at Lexa as one looks at art with a combination of inquisitiveness and awe. The stare was encapsulating as if all other senses had gone bare so that their eyes could catch a glimpse into the other's soul. Lexa took a sharp breath in, not realizing she had yet to breathe and the moment passed. She began hearing again- clapping from the girls, the next song in the cue playing.
"Excuse me for a minute." Clarke ran out of the room and into the nearest bathroom, shutting the door as she breathed heavily. She turned the water on and splashed some on her face. Then, braced herself on the sink.
"Shit." She muttered. She kept repeating that until her heart stopped racing. The devil in her head kept replaying the last thirty seconds.
"This is not okay." She whispered. "Lexa is your boss." As she mentioned the woman's name, an involuntary smile crept on her face. She quickly wiped it off and shook her head.
"No." A knock came at the door.
"Clarke are you okay?" It was the devil herself.
"I'm fine, I think it was just bad pizza." She lied.
"I can call Indra to take you home." Clarke opened the door.
"It's okay. The singing just really took it out of me." She peered around Lexa and where the girls were all crouched on the stairs watching them.
"If it is any consolation, I would have given you a ticket to Hollywood." Lexa shrugged. Clarke looked everywhere but directly at her.
"Much appreciated, but more importantly…" Lexa unconsciously moved closer. "…who wants cookies?!" Four hands raised behind them, and Clarke pushed past her into the Kitchen.
"yu laik te wamplei gon me" You're going to be the death of me. Lexa muttered to herself, following behind.
Clarke baked cookies while Lexa attempted to entertain the girls.
"You are a pretty good singer Miss Woods."
"Thank you, Roma." Lexa looked down at the name tag to make sure she said the right name. "But you can call me Lexa."
"Do you guys want to play anymore games? I think I have monopoly and cranium."
"We should play truth or dare!" Reese got really excited. "It could be super fun. Come on Lexa." She wasn't really sure how fun truth or dare could be without alcohol or dares that involved something illegal.
"Fine but nothing dangerous." She settled onto the couch, crossing her legs under her.
"I'll go first…Reese truth or dare?"
"You always pick me." She huffed. "Dare." Roma looked around to see what she could make the girl do.
"I dare you to eat that entire piece of pizza in one bite." Lexa looked down at the slice in question. It didn't seem to be a choking hazard but it wasn't going to be pleasant. Reese laughed in Roma's face and grabbed the pizza.
"Please, this is easy." She wasn't kidding. Lexa looked in amazement as she took the entire slice and swallowed it in less than a minute.
"Now, it's my turn." She said, food still in her mouth.
"Don't talk with your mouth full." Anya corrected her. Reese rolled her eyes.
"Anya, truth or dare?" The usually exuberant girl became suddenly shy.
"Dar…no truth."
"What's the worst thing you've done to the ice queen?" The other girls clapped at the question.
"Ice queen?" Lexa interrupted.
"She's their foster mom, my old one…the worst thing is when I replaced her shampoo with mayonnaise. I swear she didn't even realize it." They all laughed except Lexa who looked terrified at the prospect of getting on Anya's bad side. Anya picked up on this and patted her shoulder.
"Don't worry Heda, I actually like you." Clarke came down the stairs with a plate full of steaming chocolate chip cookies.
"They are hot, be careful." She warned. "What are we playing?"
"Truth or Dare and it's Anya's turn to ask."
"Clarke." She had a devious tone to her voice. "Truth or dare?"
"Truth, always. Last time I did a dare, I almost got arr…" Lexa gave her the cut throat signal and she quickly corrected herself. "…I almost got in trouble."
"You're boring." Anya teased. "Do you have a crush on anyone?" She immediately avoided all eye contact with any part of Lexa but her face still began to turn red.
"You do have a crush on someone! Look at her face."
"I do not." She defended. "My face just gets like this when I think the question is stupid." She stuck out her tongue.
"Very mature Clarke." Lexa laughed. Clarke wanted to throw a shot back at her but she was afraid her body would betray her.
"So who are they? You have to tell us it's the rules of the game." Clarke scoffed at the idea of a child's game having any real authority.
"I may or may not kind of like someone at work." Lexa's face fell a little bit, thinking Clarke wasn't serious.
"Who?" They all said in unison.
"You did not ask me any specifics. I just had to confirm or deny." She stuffed an entire cookie in her mouth, forgetting how hot they were.
"One detail." Anya pleaded.
"Yeah." Lexa encouraged. Clarke thought about how to word her statement without making a complete fool of herself in front of her very unavailable boss.
"They work in management." She admitted. It wasn't entirely untrue. Lexa did manage the company.
"Oh, cool." Lexa tried to say it as nonchalantly as possible but it came off with a hint of jealousy. "I didn't know you were looking for someone…I thought you were married to your phone." She added the last bit in to try and lighten the tense mood that had built up. Luckily, she didn't have to say anymore because the timer went off again. Clarke got up to get the cookies that needed a little longer.
"I defer my turn to Anya again. I need to make a phone call anyways." She waved her phone in the air. "Because I'm married to it and all." She walked away, throwing a glance back to Lexa who was obviously bothered by something.
"Okay Lexa then I get to pick on you too!"
"Truth. I can already tell you Truth." She sat up ready for whatever the kid threw at her.
"What about…" She mulled a million questions over in her mind. "I got one. Have you ever been in love AND you have to say who it was. No cheating like Clarke." She said the last part louder.
"I heard that." Clarke walked past where they were towards Lexa's office. She put two fingers to her eyes and pointed them back to all the girls indicating she had her eye on them.
"So, have you?" The girls were all facing her now, all eager for her response.
"I have been in love once. It was a long time ago, maybe before you guys were born…Definitely before that one." Her heart was not something she gave away lightly. The amount of loss she faced at an early age and even as a teenager made her question if she ever needed anyone else to love her. The few people she knew she had, were grandfathered in already. Everyone else she placed at a distance because having an open heart also meant you had an open wound that could hurt you.
"Tell us the story, please." Anya begged.
"Her name was Costia. She was my first friend." Lexa reached over the couch onto the counter and grabbed her wallet. She pulled out a worn picture of two girls smiling in soccer uniforms. She handed the picture to the girls and pointed to the two people. "That is me, and that is her. This was taken almost 10 years ago." One girl was obviously a younger version of Lexa. She had the same long brown hair, separated into French braids. She had dark black paint over her eyes from where she tried to look intimidating to the other team. The other girl had beautiful green eyes that contrasted with her dark skin. Her hair was also braided but instead of black paint, she had a white sticker on her cheek with what appeared to be the initials for the school.
"You look so happy." Anya commented.
"We were. It was like a cheesy lifetime movie. We started off as friends and then one day, it just turned into something more. We were complete opposites but that's why it worked. She always made fun of me because I liked to work on computers and I made fun of her because she only ever focused on her buildings. She wanted to be an architect." Lexa's thumb caressed the worn picture.
"Why did you break up?"
"We didn't." She continued to stare at the faces that seemed to exist in an entirely different lifetime. She couldn't even remember if she knew who that Lexa was anymore. So much life had happened between that moment and now. Life she didn't expect. Life she never chose.
"She passed away three months after this photo was taken. A person who was on drugs hit her car on the way to school." For the second time in two days, Lexa fought back tears.
"Did you ever get to tell her you loved her?"
"The day before I gave her back her history book and in it I wrote a note telling her how much I loved her. I'll never know if she ever read it." She wiped a tear out of the corner of her eye.
"Do you think you'll ever find someone again?" Anya had slid into Lexa's lap and rested her head on her chest, trying to comfort her.
"I hope so. I learned a long time ago that people don't have just one soul mate. I think we have many paths in life that we go down and there is someone waiting for us in every path. The people we meet and love help us to get where we are supposed to be. Sometimes those people don't get to stay with us for the whole journey but they lead us to the people that will."
"That is beautiful." Clarke had come back into the room. Lexa folded the picture back into her wallet.
"I think I was asked about four questions there, so who is next?" The girls were perceptive and understood they needed to distract her to other things.
"You get to ask the question now."
"Okay, Izzy, truth or dare?" Izzy yawned in the floor. "Truth." She said groggily.
"If you could only listen to one artist for the rest of your life would it be Kelly Clarkson or Taylor Swift?"
"Kelly." She said immediately.
"You hear that Anya, I think I'm going to keep this one instead." She got no response. Clarke came back and sat down. She noticed the slight redness in Lexa's eyes. As the other girls continued to ask question, she tried to grab her attention. "Are you okay?" She mouthed. Lexa nodded. "Just tired." She mouthed back. Lexa peered down and noticed that Anya was now asleep in her lap.
"Guys it is getting late. I think we should move this party to Anya's room." The other girls took a cookie and their drinks into her room. Lexa struggled to get up but managed to stand with the girl in her arms. She rearranged herself to where Anya had her legs around her waist and her arms draped over her shoulders. The girl was completely gone. Luckily she was only tall and relatively light. Clarke walked ahead and got the other girls together. Lexa made it to the room with minimal knocking of Anya's legs on the walls or furniture. The other girls had already arranged their sleeping bags and were getting tucked in. Lexa balanced and removed the comforter. She gently placed Anya down on the bed and had to peel the girl off. She replaced the bedding and tucked it in.
"Good night." She whispered to all of the girls. Clarke and her began cleaning up the disaster zone that had formed.
"So what were they asking you about?" She didn't want to pry but she could tell Lexa was still upset.
"They were asking if I believed in love." She was mostly honest.
"Do you? Or did you just tell them what they wanted to hear?"
"I know what it feels like but the kind of love we were talking about, I haven't felt in a really long time." She threw the last cup away and proceeded to move the clean-up duties into the kitchen.
"Thank you so much for helping with this. I don't think I would have survived." Clarke leaned on the oven across from where Lexa had propped herself up on the counter.
"It was a lot of fun...Different fun than I'm used to but still worth it." They awkwardly stood there, neither saying a word.
"Do you want to stay over? I bought some cinnamon rolls for tomorrow and one part of that couch pulls out into a bed." Clarke thought it over but thought she needed some space.
"I actually was talking to Indra already. She knew I was going to have a late night and is already here. I am on her way home anyways."
"Oh, that worked out perfectly then." She jumped off the counter and grabbed a cookie before walking Clarke to the door.
"You sure you don't need any more help." She offered one last time, hanging between the elevator door.
"I think we're all patched. This was…" She struggled to find the words. "…unexpected." She decided. "I never thought I'd like hanging out with kids on a Friday night more than staying in alone."
"Unexpected can be good sometimes." Clarke smiled.
"You better get going, I don't want to have to pay you for another hour." Clarke feigned insult as she let the doors close. Clarke put her head against the back of the elevator, her mind racing at all of the feelings that were finally bubbling to the surface.
"No. Anyone but her." The doors opened and she walked down the stairs towards the SUV waiting for her. For once she sat in the front seat.
"Thank you so much for this."
"No problem, I wouldn't want to stay any longer either." She joked.
"Four girls with a karaoke machine is what hell is made of. I might not be able to hear for the next week." Indra started pulling out of the lot and turned onto the nearly empty street.
"Four at once, seems excessive." Indra laughed. Clarke peaked up from her phone realizing she had never asked Indra about her home life.
"Indra, do you have any children?"
"I had a daughter." They stopped at a light and she pulled down the sun visor, a picture falling into her hand. She gave it over to Clarke. There was a smiling girl with beautiful green eyes wearing a school uniform.
"Her name was Costia."